<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>all too well by inlovewithnight</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25017532">all too well</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight'>inlovewithnight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Hockey RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1950s, M/M, References to Homophobia, Smoking, references to World War II</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:34:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25017532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sweden, 1953. Gabe comes home from university ready to pick up where he left off with Erik, who cares for the horses at the Landeskogs' country estate. It's not that simple for Erik.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Erik Johnson/Gabriel Landeskog</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Pucking Rare - A Hockey Rarepair Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all too well</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">



        <li>In response to a prompt by
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tisaniere/pseuds/Tisaniere">Tisaniere</a>  in the  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2020">PuckingRare2020</a>
          collection.
        </li>
    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Tisaniare's prompt "Gabe is the only son in an obscenely rich family. Erik runs their stable yard. They've basically grown up together since teenagers, and when Gabe returns from college he seems to be determined to take their relationship one step further. But Erik knows - and is constantly reminded - that he is definitely not the right kind of person in the eyes the Landeskog family."</p><p>I hope you enjoy this!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gabe stopped at the edge of the flagstones leading out of the stable, keeping his shoes just clear of the muddy path that led the rest of the way to the pastures. It had been so long since he'd visited, the rich smells were almost intoxicating—hay and leather, dust and the warm bodies of the horses. </p><p>He put his hands in his pockets and squinted out over the rolling hills of the nearest pasture; his sister had said that Erik was out there exercising Krigare. Beatrice had smirked when she said it, of course, and their mother had set her glass down with a definite click, while Gabe kept his face carefully impassive. Pappa had neither said anything nor moved a muscle, which was his way. Better to pretend that none of this nonsense was happening at all.</p><p>Gabe took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and a lighter from his jacket, deftly sorting things about until he was smoking one and the rest was put away again. When he looked up again it was just in time to catch sight of the form of the big black horse cresting the ridge in the pasture, reins loose, Erik's body relaxed on its back.</p><p>Gabe stood still as horse and rider made their way up from the field, his cigarette burning down to ashes between his fingers. He saw Erik lift his head halfway up the path, his back straightening and shoulders squaring as he caught sight of Gabe. Krigare lifted his head, too, nostrils flaring and ears flicking forward and back. Picking up on Erik's change in mood, Gabe thought idly, remembering Erik's lectures during his riding lessons when he was younger—when they both were. <em>The horse picks up on what you're feeling. You let it go through your body and the horse feels all of it. You have to stay in control of yourself, not just the horse.</em></p><p>A lesson Gabe hadn't learned very well at the time, but got driven into him later, at a higher cost. He was very good at controlling himself now. </p><p>"Hej, Erik, " he said when Erik drew Krigare to a halt, just a few steps away, and swung himself down out of the saddle.</p><p>"Hallå." Erik threw him a cautious look as he ran his stirrups up on their leathers. "You're home."</p><p>He'd switched to English, so Gabe did as well, drawing his cigarettes out of his pocket again. "Yes. I just got in an hour or two ago. Bea told me you were out riding."</p><p>"It's what your uncle pays me for." Erik looked at him again, shaking his head just before Gabe cupped his hands to strike the lighter. "Not in the stable. You know better."</p><p>"Sorry." Gabe let his hands fall to his sides. "Do I get a hug? Or even a 'good to see you'?"</p><p>"Not until I get this old man taken care of. You know better than that, too." Erik led Krigare down the aisleway to a set of cross-ties. "If you find a place to hang that jacket up, you could give me a hand."</p><p>Gabe smiled; the stiff body language and curt words said one thing, but letting him help with Erik's favorite of all the horses in the Landeskog stables said something else. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks spaced along the wall. "What can I do?"</p><p>"Grab a brush, there." Erik jerked his head toward a bucket of them. "Brush him down once I get the saddle off… hey, there, you. Don't bite." He rested his hand on the stallion's nose for a moment, looking at him with a deep affection that softened his face enough to make Gabe's stomach twist.</p><p>He didn't say anything, though, just picked up a brush and waited for Erik to unbuckle the girth and take the saddle away. Krigare was sweaty, but not to the point where it had foamed between his legs and at the edge of where the saddle and pad pressed to his body. It was easy enough for Gabe to make a circuit around him, brushing the sweat-damp hair against its grain, then another one laying it smooth again. </p><p>He ended up beside Krigare's neck and scratched lightly along the roots of the stallion's mane, his thumb brushing over the heavy muscles of his neck. "Hej, vän. Do you remember me?"</p><p>"Three years isn't so long for a horse." Erik's voice was odd, choked. Gabe kept his eyes on Krigare, smoothing a whorl in his coat and then taking his hand away.</p><p>"It seems like it would be longer for a horse than a person." He pushed his hands into his pockets again and stepped back, making room for Erik to release the cross-ties and lead Krigare back down the aisle to his stall. "They don't live as long, you know?"</p><p>"Don't remind me."</p><p>The steady click of Krigare's hooves on the flagstones was barely louder than Gabe's heart pounding in his ears, and he stood still, watching Erik walk away with the horse, wondering if he would turn and come back or take off running for the fields, the way Gabe used to do himself, when they were young.</p><p>**</p><p>In Gabe's memory, Erik had always been there, at the Landeskogs' great estate out in the country, a whole day's journey from their house in Stockholm. Of course that wasn't really true; Erik's father had come to Sweden as a diplomatic attaché in 1939, and his mother had taken ill and died in 1940. The war was already well in motion, and it was too dangerous to send a twelve-year-old back to America. Gabe's father had offered to send him out to the country house, where Gabe's uncle Per raised horses and whiled away his share of the family money. </p><p>So no, it wasn't true that Erik had always been there. But after 1940, Erik had never <em>left</em>.</p><p>Gabe's family had followed soon after, as things in the capital got more tense and strange. Gabe didn't remember any of it very well, though Beatrice said she did and that he must be pretending. Gabe's clearest memories kicked in here at the estate, with Uncle Per boosting him up onto a pony and telling him to just keep its nose pointed after Erik, mounted on his own pony, who could guide him all over the pastures and back home again.</p><p>They spent the whole war like that, as Gabe remembers it. The estate was far enough from the railways that they never encountered the German soldiers on permittenttraffik between Germany and Norway, or the ones traveling from Norway to fight in Finland. When the country turned its face more toward the Allies, Gabe remembers seeing a few British and American planes pass overhead on their way to the shared airbases, and hearing his parents whisper about Danish refugee children being housed by some of their friends. </p><p>What he remembers about the war is running through the fields with Erik and Beatrice, sometimes on horseback and sometimes afoot. He remembers camping in the yard and looking up at the stars. He remembers Erik telling them American stories in careful, halting Swedish that got better year by year, at the same pace as their own English improved. </p><p>Then the war ended, and Gabe and his family went back to Stockholm. But they still came back every summer, and for visits at the holidays and on breaks from school. Gabe expected, every time they went, to have Uncle Per tell him that Erik had packed up his things and gone back to America; his father had long since resigned from his post and gone home.</p><p>But Erik was always there, in the stables, no matter what.</p><p>**</p><p>Once Krigare was settled with hay and water, Gabe and Erik walked slowly out of the stable and stopped in the courtyard. Erik kicked at a pebble, sending it flying off in the direction of the house, but he didn't watch it go; his eyes didn't settle on anything, just restlessly glanced around and around like something might appear at any minute, and he didn't want to miss it.</p><p>"Well," Gabe said after a few moments. "If a hug isn't possible, maybe a handshake, then?"</p><p>"You're a child," Erik said, but he grabbed Gabe by the shoulders and pulled him into a rough hug, one that made Gabe's heart stutter. It had been—some time, a good long while, since he'd been touched by anyone in the way that Erik did so easily.</p><p>"And it's good to see me?" Gabe prompted where Erik finally let go, earning him an eye-roll but a smile, too, and a quick nod. "You have to say it or it doesn't count."</p><p>"It's good to see you, Gabe." All these years in Sweden and Erik still said his name just a little bit differently than was correct, just different enough that it was something Gabe kept in his heart as special. "You going to share those cigarettes, or what?"</p><p>"Oh!" Gabe took the pack and lighter out again and lit two, passing the second over to Erik. They stood there for a few minutes more in silence, but the companionable kind. </p><p>Erik sucked some smoke in deeply, rolling the cigarette between his fingers, then looked at him again. "So you're a university graduate now?"</p><p>"I am." Gabe nodded and exhaled through his nose. "For whatever that's worth."</p><p>"Next up is joining the family business, right?" Erik didn't wait for him to nod. "But the question is which one? Diplomacy or finance? I know you wouldn't be happy with the third option, petty idleness in the country."</p><p>"I don't know. I could learn to like it." He almost believed himself. "But anyway, I haven't decided yet. My father says I can take the summer. He won't demand a decision until fall."</p><p>"That's generous of him." Erik didn't bother hiding the surprise in his voice, and Gabe didn't bother being offended by it. They understood each other's positions relative to the senior Landeskogs, by now.</p><p>Gabe tossed his cigarette down and ground it out under his heel. "Are you coming to dinner with the family tonight?"</p><p>"Ah. No." Erik blew a stream of smoke toward the house. "Your mother doesn't allow that anymore. I guess that was since the last time you were here."</p><p>"Doesn't <em>allow</em> it?" Gabe frowned at him. "Why not?"</p><p>"Well, apparently." Erik blew another stream of smoke, this one skyward. "I'm a grown man, and Beatrice is a grown woman, and it would be inappropriate."</p><p>"I missed an awful lot of the plot at university," Gabe told a passing sparrow. "Beatrice?"</p><p>"Yes, you know her. Blond, a little shorter than you, absolutely foul mouth when she's angry?"</p><p>Gabe rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, but what has she got to do with anything?"</p><p>"Oh. Well." Erik shrugged, his face so blank as to be a mask, but Gabe caught the flash of hurt in his eyes. "It's a lot easier for your parents to be worried about inappropriate appearances between me and Beatrice, then it would ever be for them to worry about me and you."</p><p>Gabe went still, his mind abruptly full of blank whiteness, like he'd stepped out of the dark of the stable into a winter day bright from sun on snow. His hands moved of their own accord, jerkily pulling the cigarettes from his pocket again and lighting another one, filling his lungs deeply before he could speak again. "I'm sure Mamma and Pappa have forgotten all about that."</p><p>Erik snorted and shook his head, tossing the end of his own cigarette into a puddle. "You know perfectly well they haven't."</p><p>Of course Gabe knew that. No parent would ever forget finding the teenage heir to the family name, who was perfectly well aware of the expectations set out for him, in the hayloft with the American attaché's son, who had been left there collecting dust under the indulgence of the family's useless branch. </p><p>Gabe's father had been more than ready to pack Erik back off to America; it was the only time Gabe ever remembered Uncle Per putting his foot down. He'd never asked for anything from his brother, content to stay at the estate and amuse himself with his horses, with art and wine, with the endless stream of sweet-faced mistresses. He never asked for anything, so when he asked for Erik to stay, his brother could hardly refuse him.</p><p>That night cut through Gabe's teenage years like a knife. On the one side, running through the fields with Erik and Bea. On the other, tutors and constant threats of being sent to study far away, and, finally, university. Somehow he managed to stay in Stockholm for that, probably because of the availability it gave for him to appear at weekly family dinners and regular lunches with his mother, supervised and monitored as much as she could manage. Which wasn't enough to actually keep him behaving the way she wanted, but they could both pretend.</p><p>It also allowed him to see Beatrice twice a week for fika or a walk, where she could offer steady updates on her last trip out to the estate, or the letters she received from Erik, tucked neatly in envelopes alongside the ones from Per and the mistresses, all of whom claimed Bea as an especial friend. She would hand Erik's letters over to him like it was nothing, like she didn't know how much it hurt him that Erik never wrote him directly. They pretended together, too, but it was for comfort instead of denial. It was different.</p><p>Erik was still watching him, face blank, eyes a little wild. Gabe cleared his throat. "I'm not sure what you want me to say, Erik."</p><p>Erik's shoulders dropped, just enough that Gabe knew he'd said the wrong thing. "You don't have to say anything. I'm just... you need to know, that things are different now. We can't spend time together like we used to. You're not a child anymore. We need to… I'll keep out of their way."</p><p>"I wasn't a child <em>then</em>." That night flashing before his eyes again, his mother's outraged screams that she would have Erik up on charges of corrupting a child, as if seventeen was still that, and charges of perversity, as if homosexuality hadn't been legalized since before the end of the war, for God's sake, as if they were doing anything more than kissing, as if they weren't both perfectly eager and happy to be in the damn loft together, as if Gabe hadn't –</p><p>Erik's jaw was set rigidly. "It's best if you forget about all that. Not just... that night, but all of the childhood things. We're not friends anymore. I'm one of the help. You're the heir to the Landeskog name and fortune. You need to keep boundaries."</p><p>"What are you talking about?" Gabe snapped, throwing his cigarette to the ground. "It's 1953, Erik, we're not in some kind of feudal novel."</p><p>"I'm not arguing about this anymore." Erik ran his hand over his hair, smoothing it back tight to his skull, then turned for the house. "Good afternoon, <em>sir</em>, if you want to ride tomorrow, send word and I'll have your horse saddled for you."</p><p>"Erik." He walked away, boots clicking on the flagstones, and Gabe let his voice rise not quite to a shout. "Erik!"</p><p>He didn't even look back, and Gabe watched him walk away until he disappeared through the trees around the house.</p><p>**</p><p>Dinner that night was highly unpleasant.</p><p>Beatrice and Per's mistress were wearing dresses in the same shade of green, and absolutely delighted about it, which had Gabe's mother in a silently seething fit of rage. Pappa and Uncle Per were doing their best to ignore the entire distaff side of the table, carrying on a vague sort of discussion about trade that sometimes veered into peppering Gabe with questions about his plans beyond the summer. </p><p>"You told me I didn't have to have plans yet, Pappa." Gabe forced a weak smile. "I'm thinking on it, but I don't have anything nailed down yet."</p><p>"I think the biggest question is if you'll do your military service as an officer or enlisted." Pappa swirled his brandy in his glass. "If you want to go into the diplomatic service, you'll have to be an officer, it's simply necessary."</p><p>"I'm not sure yet." Gabe accepted his own glass of brandy from the silent butler, Anders, who had been there since before he was born and, Gabe was fairly sure, would continue wordlessly serving after they all were dead. </p><p>Per smiled at him. "Well, it's good that you'll have some time to relax and think. All that time studying thins the blood, I think. Some good fresh air and rides in the country will do you good."</p><p>Gabe returned the smile and raised his glass. "I couldn't agree more. Will you go riding with me tomorrow?"</p><p>"Oh, my back doesn't let me get in the saddle anymore these days, I'm afraid. I leave exercising the horses to Erik, he's wonderful with them."</p><p>Beatrice laughed out loud, which didn't help with the impression that the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped considerably. "Erik's wonderful at everything, Uncle."</p><p>Gabe and Pappa both stared into their drinks, and Uncle Per's mistress made a helpless, abortive move to push her chair back, presumably to flee the room. <em>Mamma</em>, Gabe thought helplessly, <em>please don't erupt over this.</em></p><p>Beatrice smiled at their mother in an excessively brilliant way, all teeth and eyes. "We should invite him up for dinner one night this weekend, Mamma. Just like when we were younger. Don't you think? We can all reminisce about old times."</p><p>Pappa cleared his throat. "Young Johnson has assured me that he's far more comfortable eating with the rest of the staff."</p><p>"Oh, of course." Beatrice widened her eyes. "It's so good of war orphans to know their place and not think they're part of the family just because they were raised alongside us."</p><p>"That's enough." Mamma set her wineglass down and rose to her feet, Anders instantly appearing to pull her chair back. "He's not an orphan, and you are behaving terribly. You're overtired. Go up to your room and go to bed."</p><p>"Oh <em>no</em>," Beatrice said. "I'm not invited to sit around being bored out of my mind after dinner while you gossip about the neighbors? How awful."</p><p>"I see you would also like to be sent back to the city, with instructions to the servants not to let you out to run around with your friends like a whore."</p><p>"Enough." Pappa got to his feet as well, with Anders moving faster than a man of his age should to reach his chair. "Per, we'll go to my study. The rest of you are <em>all</em> overtired. I'm sure we'll all act more civilly in the morning."</p><p>Gabe remained seated after everyone else had swanned out of the room, brandy still in hand, unsure if he was included in the retreat to the study or if he'd been sent to his room. Anders, hovering by the door and waiting to clear the table, was no help.</p><p>Gabe finally stood and picked up the bottle from the sideboard. "Do you mind if I take this with me?"</p><p>"Of course, sir," Anders murmured, and Gabe dragged himself out.</p><p>**</p><p>He drank half of it sitting in his room, looking out the window over the moonlit fields, and was on his way to pouring another glass when Beatrice slipped through the door. She held up a bottle of whiskey and smiled. "Still twins, I see."</p><p>"I don't think it's something we can turn off." He offered her a glass and she poured generously. "Did everyone else go to bed?"</p><p>She took a long swallow and shuddered. "I don't know. I don't especially care, either. They know they were being unreasonable, they won't bother either of us about it."</p><p>He dropped into an armchair and frowned at own glass. "I suppose I should head back to Stockholm in the morning."</p><p>"Why? We just got here."</p><p>"Erik doesn't want anything to do with me, Mamma and Pappa are obviously not in the mood to be pleasant, and I can't spend all my time with you and Uncle Per, as much as I might want to."</p><p>"Why not?" She took another drink and shrugged. "What do you think I've been doing the last three years while you were pretending to study? Every time we came out here, I spent all my time with Per and the mistress of the season." She smirked at him. "Mamma has to pretend they're really his secretaries, so she can't object to me going around with them. It's fun."</p><p>"You get away with <em>everything</em>," he groaned, lolling his head back against the chair. "So you don't spend any time with Erik either, when you're here, then?"</p><p>"Oh, of course I do." She brushed at her skirt and picked up the bottle of whiskey. "I go down to his room in the evenings, like we're going to do right now."</p><p>Gabe blinked. "What?"</p><p>"Please don't make me repeat myself, it's boring. Come on, Gabbe. And bring the brandy, too, he drinks like a fish and we don't want to run out."</p><p>Gabe followed her down the hallway to the servants' stairwell, then down to the living quarters at the back of the house. She walked with supreme confidence to the door at the far end, the largest room, reserved for the master of the house's valet back when they had those. Uncle Per had let Erik have it when he was eighteen, saying the space might as well not go to waste. Gabe remembered that argument between his uncle and his parents, who thought that a horse-keeper might as well live in the caretaker's room above the stable.</p><p>
  <em>He can live in the house, he's not a damn dog – </em>
</p><p>Gabe shook his head, trying to push the memory out of his head before they stepped into Erik's room. No point bringing the bad parts of the past with them. Maybe they could have a nice night, just the three of them, like it used to be.</p><p>"I hope you're not sulking," Beatrice said as the door opened, pushing past Erik into the room. "I don't tolerate sulking."</p><p>Erik rolled his eyes and held the door wider for Gabe. "I wasn't sure if you were coming." </p><p>"Please, as if either of us could stay away." Bea took a set of glasses from the windowsill, giving them a dubious look. "There are filthy, give me a handkerchief... We need to have a real reunion dinner, not whatever that was earlier. You're lucky you missed it." </p><p>"Alcohol cleans the glass itself," Erik said absently, moving clothes off of the pair of chairs by the little table. "Handkerchief's there on the desk, though."</p><p>Gabe clutched the brandy bottle to his chest and watched Erik for a moment. He had stripped down to his undershirt and trousers, arms and throat bare, and even though he'd already been a grown man the last time Gabe saw him, he was more of one now—settled into his body, familiar with his own strength, ease and comfort in every movement. Gabe wasn't sure he could say the same about himself, if he could somehow see his body from the outside. </p><p>Maybe he had been foolish, thinking they could ever pick up where they left off. Thinking that nothing had changed.</p><p>"Gabbe," Beatrice said, "don't just stand there, give me that bottle. What do you have to contribute, Erik?"</p><p>"More whiskey, on the desk." He nodded at the bottle, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. "I've got... bread, I think, under that towel at the end. Not much, though, sorry."</p><p>"We don't need to <em>eat</em>. We're here to get drunk." She poured three glasses of whiskey and handed them out with the grim efficiency of a general. "Tell us everything, now, Gabbe."</p><p>Gabe stopped, his glass halfway to his mouth. "Me? What?"</p><p>"Well, you're the one of us who's been off doing exciting things." She sat down on the foot of the bed, crossing her legs and throwing back her drink. "Erik and I have been bored out of our minds."</p><p>"Speak for yourself." Erik turned one of the chairs around and straddled the back of it, nodding at the other chair and then at Gabe. "I have a very exciting life."</p><p>"Oh, what, a horse threw a shoe? Thrilling."</p><p>He took a long swallow, his eyes still on Gabe. "I like horses."</p><p>"You need to come to Stockholm. Doesn't he, Gabbe? He could room with you wherever you end up this fall."</p><p>"Not if I go into the army." He couldn't look away from Erik, either, even to address Beatrice directly. "But you should come, Erik. We could find you somewhere to stay."</p><p>Erik shook his head. "What would I do in Stockholm? I don't think there's a big call for someone to look after horses there nowadays."</p><p>"You would do something else, obviously." Bea pointed at him. "You would make an excellent bartender."</p><p>Erik smiled at her, the gentle way he used to smile at both of them, the way he hadn't smiled a Gabe in a long, long time. That had stopped about the same time Gabe had started looking at him differently, in ways he didn't understand at first, and then <em>did</em> understand, sharply and brightly, in embarrassing detail, what seemed like every time he fell asleep.</p><p>"I don't want to be a bartender, Bea," Erik said. "And I don't want to move to Stockholm. But I appreciate the thought."</p><p>She sighed and rolled her eyes, then gestured at Gabe with her drink. "Tell us stories, then, hurry up. What have you been up to at school?"</p><p>It really hadn't been all that exciting, but he did his best, dragging up the handful of incidents that were funny. He wanted to see them both smile and laugh. That was what he always thought of when he thought about times like these, the three of them hiding away somewhere on the estate together.</p><p>By the time he ran out of steam, they had killed one of the bottles of whiskey. Bea was stretched out on her stomach across the bed, legs kicked up in the air behind her and crossed at the ankle, sorting through a stack of papers on Erik's bedside table.</p><p>"Beatrice," Erik said mildly. "Stop snooping."</p><p>"I'm not, you left them out in the open." She lifted one paper and squinted at it. "Your father has terrible handwriting."</p><p>"Oh, how is he?" Gabe asked, refilling his glass. </p><p>Erik shrugged, putting his feet up onto the table. One of his socks had a hole in it, Gabe noted absently. Typical. "Well, like Beatrice said, his handwriting is terrible."</p><p>"How's his health?" It seemed like the kind of question that should be asked, though it didn't earn a flicker of response on Erik's face. </p><p>"He says he's well. I don't have any reason to doubt him."</p><p>"Has he asked you to come home?" </p><p>From the bed, Beatrice snorted, and Gabe glared at her; there was no reason not to at least <em>pretend</em> that Mr. Johnson might behave decently. Pretending he might was the civil thing to do. At least Erik wasn't overreacting, just taking a small sip of his drink and studying his own toes.</p><p>"He hinted at it," Erik said after a moment, "but he would never be so tacky as to <em>ask</em>. I am assured that should I ever long for American soil, I won't find the family home locked to me. And my stepmother hasn't ripped out my mother's roses. I think that's supposed to be symbolic, but I honestly don't know of what."</p><p>"I'd like to go to America someday." Gabe stared down into his drink, swirling the amber liquid around a bit. Erik’s stiffness and formal language—like he was quoting something Gabe didn’t recognize—threw him harder than he expected. None of this felt right. None of it fucking fit anymore. "Would you come with me if I went?"</p><p>"Of course I would. You'd get mugged or kidnapped five minutes off the boat if I didn't." Erik's smile softened his words a little, enough that Gabe smiled back. "Not you, though, Bea. You would leave broken hearts across the continent and I can't be responsible for that."</p><p>"I'm not sure if I should be flattered or offended." She squinted at the clock on the bedside table, then sighed and sat up. "Well, gentlemen, I need my beauty sleep. You two are hopeless, so please, don't end the party on my account. I'll see you in the morning at breakfast, Gabbe. You can be up to twenty minutes late, but not any more or Mamma will be in a terrible mood all day. Goodnight, darlings."</p><p>She swept out, the door closing behind her with a heavy click, and Gabe found himself looking at Erik again, suddenly aware of how small the table between them was. After a moment, Erik cleared his throat.</p><p>"Hand me the whiskey?" he asked, and Gabe did, concentrating on Erik's fingers curled around the neck of the bottle instead of staring at his face. Maybe that wasn't much better, but—well, it was something.</p><p>"So it sounds like you enjoyed university." Erik's voice was so bland, so empty. Not how Gabe remembered it at all. "I'm glad. You've grown up well, too. I barely recognized you earlier, at the stable."</p><p>Gabe swallowed and shrugged. "I don't think I've changed so much."</p><p>"Trust me. You have." Erik threw back half his drink. "When you left you were a kid, and now—"</p><p>"I'm still the same person. Exactly the same."</p><p>"Nobody stays exactly the same over three years. It's not how people work." Erik swung his legs down from the table and walked over to look out the window. "It's good that you're different. That you've… that we've both changed."</p><p>"I said I haven't changed." Gabe stared at him, at the back of his head because Erik continued stubbornly staring out the window. "Not the way I think you mean."</p><p>"Three years at university, that's plenty of time to meet… people." Erik took another drink, his movement stiff and jerky. </p><p>"I met a lot of people. That's true."</p><p>"Lots of nice young women."</p><p>At least Erik refusing to look at him gave Gabe the space to roll his eyes. "Lots of nice young men."</p><p>That got his attention, his body going still and his shoulders rigid. "Oh?"</p><p>"Are you going to ask how many counts as <em>lots</em>?"</p><p>He brought the glass to his mouth again. "None of my business."</p><p>"You're so… what's the thing you used to say? Pig-headed." Gabe got up and put his glass down on the table. "Your entire head is made of pigs."</p><p>Erik looked back over his shoulder at him, mouth twisted in a reluctant smile. "That's not really how the saying works."</p><p>"You know what I mean, though." Gabe wants to stomp his foot like a child. Instead he folds his arms over his chest, glaring across the little room. "I haven't changed. I still want other men. I still want you."</p><p>Erik sighed and turned to face him properly, putting his own drink aside on the windowsill. "You know it isn't that simple."</p><p>"Why not?"</p><p>"I'm too old for you. I'm too American. I'm too… I'm nobody." He held his hand up before Gabe could speak. "Officially. Legally. I don't even have a fucking passport, you know? I can travel around inside the country because I look close enough to Swedish and I keep a letter from your uncle in my wallet, directing the authorities to please call him before having me deported, but I'm a <em>ghost</em> here, Gabe. You're a Landeskog. You're the <em>heir</em> to the Landeskogs. You can't be with a ghost."</p><p>Gabe clenched his teeth, enough that a sharp ache spiked in his jaw. "You're not too old. Being too American doesn't even make any sense, you haven't been there since you were eleven. And your paperwork is fixable, if you actually care about that, which you don't. You're just making things up that you think will make me not want you. But it isn't going to work."</p><p>Erik glared at him. "It isn't, is it?"</p><p>"No. I'm just as stubborn as you are. Just as many pigs."</p><p>"Please stop talking about pigs." Erik rubbed his face with both hands, dragging them upward into his hair. "What do you want from me?"</p><p>"You know."</p><p>"I can't go on assumptions. I need you to be clear with me."</p><p>Gabe could do that, absolutely. He crossed the room quickly, reaching out and catching Erik by the undershirt, and pulled him in for a desperate kiss, his teeth catching hard against Erik's own. For a moment Gabe thought that Erik wasn't going to open up to him, that they would bounce off each other and that would be the end of it, but then Erik moaned—a low, helpless sound, almost terrible in how it broke out of his chest—and his hands came to Gabe's shoulders as he opened up and let him in.</p><p>He had insisted so many times that he wasn't a child the first time they were together, the ill-fated hayloft incident. He had only been a few months shy of eighteen, after all. Getting ready to leave for university. An adult in most of the things that mattered in his country—and anyway, the age of consent to be with a woman was fifteen, it wasn't fair that it was different to do more than kiss Erik while they twisted up together in the scratchy mess of the hay.</p><p>Here and now, though, he had to admit that this time was so much different, and better. He knew what he was doing, for one, and he could feel Erik start with surprise at how Gabe moved, how he touched him, how his tongue slid against Erik's own and explored his mouth.</p><p>Erik's hands dropped to Gabe's hips, steadying him. "Lots of men, huh," he murmured against Gabe's mouth. "You were a good student."</p><p>"At everything." Gabe let his own hands explore, tugging Erik's undershirt up enough to get under it and run over skin. "You could meet most of them if you ever came to Stockholm. We're still friends. Mostly."</p><p>"Sounds like there's a story about the ones you're not still friends with."</p><p>Gabe shrugged and kissed him again. "Don't need to think about them right now."</p><p>"I guess not." Another kiss, long and lingering, and Erik's hands finally moved, sliding up Gabe's back to his shoulder blades and then down again, slow and careful until they rested on the curve of Gabe's ass through his trousers. Gabe made a noise against Erik's mouth, nodding his encouragement in case it wasn't enough to get his message across, but Erik pulled away after a moment, dragging one hand through his hair and reaching for his whiskey glass with the other.</p><p>"I can't do this tonight," he said, something more pleading in his eyes than Gabe was ever used to seeing there. "I'm not... I'm not saying never, I'm not even saying not while you're here, but I need to think. I need some time. I can't just go flat-out like this."</p><p><em>Why not</em> was at the tip of Gabe's tongue, thick with frustration, but he forced himself to nod, stepping back and looking for his own glass. He poured the last of the whiskey and drank, willing the burn to kill the hot, low twist in his stomach. It didn't.</p><p>"Will you go riding with me tomorrow?" he asked finally. "I'm out of shape and out of practice. You can laugh at me as much as you want."</p><p>Erik nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'll meet you at the stable at eleven. And saddle one of the ponies for you, since you're unprepared. That little spotted monster Bea loved so much is still around and kicking, if you'd like to try him out."</p><p>"The one who bit me every chance he got? No thanks." Gabe glanced around the room, gaze lingering regretfully on the bed, then turned away. "I trust you to pick out another one that won't embarrass me, though. Goodnight, Erik."</p><p>"Goodnight, Gabe." The last glimpse Gabe had before the door closed behind him was Erik pouring brandy into his glass. His night wasn't quite over yet, then; maybe he was going to start that thinking. Gabe, on the other hand, was going directly up to bed. He'd placed his heart out there in front of him, and it was still waiting to be picked up. There wasn't anything else he could do.</p><p>**</p><p>The horse Erik chose for him was a sweet-natured chestnut mare who showed very little interest in forward motion at all. While that meant Gabe was safe from being thrown, it also meant he couldn't just sit back and enjoy the ride through the fields, since a great deal of energy had to go into encouraging her to keep moving. It was, in retrospect, a very typically <em>Erik</em> thing to do.</p><p>Erik himself was riding Krigare again, perfectly at ease in the stallion's saddle. "We did a hard workout yesterday," he said while he waited for Gabe to mount up. "So today we'll take it easy, just stretch out a bit and enjoy the scenery."</p><p>"Do you always refer to that horse and yourself as 'we'?" Gabe gave the saddle a sour look and hoisted himself up into it. Fuck. His thighs were never going to forgive him for this.</p><p>"More or less." Erik stroked Krigare's neck. "I keep telling Per he should find someone who can take him to compete. He's good enough to show for Sweden all the way up to the Olympics. And it doesn't have to be a military officer riding to compete at that level anymore, either. Much easier to find someone. " </p><p>"You should do it."</p><p>Erik gathered up his reins and nudged Krigare forward without looking back to see if Gabe was ready. "I'm still not a citizen of this country, no matter how many times you try to forget that."</p><p>"Paperwork."</p><p>"Fairly important and complicated paperwork." Erik reached down to adjust his stirrup leathers, quiet for a moment, then sat up and glanced back just long enough to be sure Gabe was upright in the saddle as the mare shuffled forward. "Follow me, we'll start slow to warm them up."</p><p>Warming up was one thing, but after a while of trotting along the lane leading to the far fields, Erik pushed Krigare into a rolling canter, a rate of speed that Gabe's mare deeply resented. By the time they caught up, Gabe was breaking into a full sweat under his shirt.</p><p>Erik dropped back down to a trot again, grinning with unabashed smugness. "What did you say last night, out of shape and out of practice? That's an understatement."</p><p>"It doesn't help that you gave me a damn plowhorse." Gabe patted her neck anyway; she was being very patient and hadn't pitched him off over her neck yet, anyway. "I'd forgotten how beautiful it is way out here."</p><p>"It's my favorite place to go. Especially later in the day, when the sun's a little lower and the birds come out." Erik looked around, his eyes softer than Gabe could remember seeing in such a long time. "I like to come out here and think."</p><p>Gabe followed his gaze, then looked back at his face. "What do you think about?"</p><p>"Oh, lots of things." Erik nudged Krigare over toward a small stand of trees, and Gabe followed. "Life. Philosophy. Poetry, if you can believe that."</p><p>"I can't."</p><p>Erik laughed, shaking his head, then dismounted with a smooth swing of his leg. Gabe's imitation was significantly more stiff and painful. "Maybe not so much poetry."</p><p>They tied the horses and sat down under one of the trees, looking out over the field. Erik sat stiffly upright, hugging his knees to his chest, and Gabe took it as a cue to leave some space between them. He picked a bit of grass and started tearing the blades into pieces, letting them stain his fingers green. The silence was stretching out too long, but he couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't be pushing too hard, being demanding, and he—</p><p>"Tell me about the other men," Erik said suddenly, and Gabe dropped all of the bits of grass back on the ground.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Your men in Stockholm." Erik rested his chin on his knees and looked at Gabe with serious eyes. "I'm curious."</p><p>Gabe stared at him for a moment, trying to read anything in the planes of his face, but Erik had always been good at making himself a mask. "I'm not sure it's any of your business."</p><p>Erik's eyebrows lifted slightly. "That's true." He looked over at the horses for a moment. "I can't argue with that."</p><p>Gabe took a deep breath, raking his fingers through the grass. "They were nice. We met at school, or at the bars. We had a good time together. I learned things. They weren't you."</p><p>"Obviously." Erik lowered his head again, his forehead to his knees this time so Gabe couldn't see his face. "I missed you. I thought about you… so much. Constantly."</p><p>"Why didn't you write me?" There was dirt under his fingernails now, along with bits of grass. He held his hand in his lap and stared at it. "Or come to see me? I wasn't hard to find, Erik."</p><p>"You remember what happened. What they said. What they wanted to do." Erik curled in on himself, arms tightening around his knees. "I didn't want to drag you back into that. I figured if you had a chance to be free, to find someone else, to find a better way to be happy, I should let you have that."</p><p>Gabe rubbed his fingers on his thigh, as if any of the grass stains would come off. "And you were scared. You wanted to protect yourself, too. It would've been very difficult for you, if they threw you out and you had to go back to America."</p><p>Erik lifted his head enough to look at him, eyes red-rimmed and wet. Gabe couldn't remember ever seeing him cry before, not even when they were children, not even when his father went back to America and left him behind. "Per swore to me that wouldn't happen. Of course I was scared, but not… not as much as I was scared for you."</p><p>"You should have asked me. I would've told you there was nothing to be scared about."</p><p>Erik sighed and stretched his legs out, leaning back on his hands. "I guess you find your parents considerably less frightening than I do."</p><p>"I don't find them frightening at all." Gabe dragged his clean hand through his hair. "We should've brought some drinks out here with us, to talk about things like this."</p><p>"I thought about it, honestly." Erik's mouth twitched not quite into a smile. "But I wasn't sure we were going to talk about it, or if we'd just ride, or…"</p><p>Gabe waited a moment, then gestured. "Please, tell me this third option. Whatever it is, I'm happy to try it out."</p><p>"Not even knowing what it is?" Erik looked at him for a moment, then nodded, determination in his eyes. "All right, then, hold still." </p><p>Gabe could guess, and he hoped, but it was still an overwhelming relief when Erik moved across the grass and kissed him, one hand cupping Gabe's jaw. It was hungrier than the night before, but less desperate—they both knew that there wasn't any rejection coming, and that they were alone out here with the sky and the birds and the mild-eyed supervision of the horses. </p><p>Gabe leaned back and Erik moved with him, letting Gabe pull them both down to the grass. Erik's weight settled on top of him, solid and heavier than he looked—wiry, Gabe thought, picturing the muscles he had seen the night before in Erik's room. </p><p>They kissed for a long time, Erik controlling the ebb and flow with an ease that made a small part of Gabe's mind wonder who <em>he</em> had been practicing with all this time. He didn't begrudge it, though; it worked out well for him, really, kissing someone with knowledge and self-assurance, whose hands slid down over Gabe's chest and torso to tug his shirt free of his riding jodhpurs.</p><p>"Is this what you thought about?" Gabe asked, arching up a bit to free the bit of fabric caught in the back waistband. "When you thought about me, was it out here like this?"</p><p>Erik laughed a little, pushing himself up off of Gabe. "Sometimes. But I'm not the creative one here, a lot of times it was just… in my room, or your room. Beds, couches, the floor. Not the hayloft, though."</p><p>Gabe couldn't blame him for that. Better not to let him dwell on it, anyway. "I remember you being very creative."</p><p>"Was I?" Erik shook his head and undid Gabe's belt. "I remember you and Bea running the show."</p><p>"You told us stories. You always had the best ones." Gabe lifted his hips, trying to encourage Erik to keep going, open his fly, <em>touch</em> him. </p><p>"Those were all very old stories to American kids. Only new over here." Erik ran his palm over Gabe's stomach, stirring the pale blond hair over even more pale skin, then met his eyes. "Is it all right?"</p><p>Gabe caught his wrist and guided his hand down by way of answer. If Erik made him wait any longer he might scream, and that would scare the horses. Fortunately, <em>finally</em>, Erik took the cue, opening up Gabe's jodhpurs and reaching into his underwear to guide his cock out into the air. </p><p>Erik looked up at him for a moment, eyes wide, an impossible vulnerability there—something Gabe never associated with him, couldn't ever—then moved down to take Gabe in his mouth. Gabe gasped, one hand clutching at the ground beside his hip and the other catching in Erik's hair. </p><p>For all of Gabe's jokes, the actual number of men he had been with at university was three, two of whom were named Karl. Erik was easily as skilled at this as either Karl, if not quite as much as Sebastian, who had been responsible for one of the most mind-shattering months of Gabe's life before vanishing to Paris for a holiday and never coming back. This was good, though, very good, and Erik was much less frightening than Sebastian, so Gabe could relax into the sensation, letting go of his thoughts and self-control in favor of moaning helplessly in the grass. </p><p>Erik took him in deeply, his nose buried in the damp curls at the base of Gabe's cock. His eyes were closed tightly, brow furrowed, as he worked Gabe with his mouth, and Gabe made himself let go of Erik's hair so he wouldn't pull it too harshly. He didn't want anything about this to be harsh—it should be good, like all of his memories of stolen, swift kisses and touches with Erik, like everything up to the moment his father's flashlight beam hit their faces and exposed them there in the hay.</p><p>He pushed that memory away, concentrating instead on the heat of Erik's mouth around him, the play of his tongue as he gave Gabe a break from suction. His hands easily spanned Gabe's thighs, fingers digging in just enough to steady him. He was trying to be gentle, too, Gabe realized, and that was the thing to almost break his own control, that keeping this good and careful was as important to Erik as to him.</p><p>Gabe tried to keep his hips still, not letting himself thrust, and Erik made a low noise around him before pulling off and wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. "You don't have to hold so still," he said, his voice rough in a way that made Gabe's hips want to jerk again despite the loss of contact. "I mean...be gentle, but you don't have to not move at all. I don't mind." He smiled, then ducked his head, kissing Gabe's hip while his hair fell forward to hide his face. "I like knowing that you feel it. That it's good."</p><p>"It's very good," Gabe said, hearing the tight desperation in his own voice. "Please, Erik, I need—"</p><p>Erik nodded and kissed the head of his cock before taking it in again, cheeks hollowing. Gabe squeezed his eyes closed and tried to let his body react without doing too much, keeping his hips rolling without jerking. He took what Erik had said as permission to make noise, though, and that felt good, moaning and making little cries and saying Erik's name as many times as he wanted. </p><p>He didn't reach for Erik again until he knew he was nearing the edge. His fingers caught at Erik's forelock this time, tugging a little desperately and not quite wrenching Erik's head up to ease the pull as he said "I'm going to—stop before I—"</p><p>Erik shook his head and brought his own hand up to push Gabe's away, pushing the messy forelock back with the rest of his hair and taking Gabe all the way to the back of his throat. Gabe shuddered and gave in, letting himself spill into the heat, his hand coming up to clutch at his own face, covering his eyes and half-catching the broken sound that came from his throat.</p><p>They lay there for what felt longer than it really could be; Gabe's sweat hadn't yet started to cool on his skin when Erik slowly pulled back and sat up on his knees. "Good?" Erik asked softly, his voice wrecked. He wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve this time, watching Gabe with so much care in his eyes that Gabe couldn't find the words to answer for a moment.</p><p>"I—yes, good. Amazing." He sat up, fumbling to free his shirt from where his own weight was pinning it awkwardly and holding himself down. "Come here, my god, let me—"</p><p>Erik crawled forward, stopping with his hands at either side of Gabe's hips, and kissed him, deeply and slowly, letting Gabe lick the salty, sour taste of himself out of his mouth. "What do you want?" Gabe asked when he pulled back for breath. "My hand, my mouth, my—it might be a little awkward out here, but you can fuck me, I would really—I've dreamed about that, you know, for such a long time, Erik—"</p><p>Erik closed his eyes, rocking back on his knees and then forward again, his head dropping to Gabe's shoulder and hiding his face. "Don't... don't say things like that. You'll kill me."</p><p>"I don't want to do <em>that</em>." Gabe reached for him, catching his shoulders and trying to pull him closer. "Tell me what you want."</p><p>Erik shook his head, twisting back and forth to evade Gabe's touch. "I can't."</p><p>"What are you talking about?" Gabe laughed, then saw Erik's face as he pulled away, how it was twisted up in agony. "Erik, we just <em>did</em>, what do you mean you can't?"</p><p>"That was... that was for you, I was giving that to you. I can't let you do that for me. I can't... ruin you like that."</p><p>Gabe stared at him, very aware that his mouth was hanging open, that sweat was still running down from his hairline, that more sweat and his own semen was drying between his thighs. "I'm already very well-ruined, if that's the word we're using. Repeatedly and enthusiastically ruined."</p><p>Erik exhaled sharply and got to his feet. "That can all be put aside as university years. Nothing serious. Nothing that matters. And your parents don't know and don't have to know about that. But if you don't think they'll be watching you like hawks when you come back from spending an afternoon with me..."</p><p>"I don't think they'd see much of a difference between you sucking my dick and me sucking yours, Erik." It came out harsh and ugly and not what he wanted this to have been at all. So far from what he wanted. "I'm fairly sure it's all the same to them. And I don't care either way, so why do you?"</p><p>"I can't be responsible for your life being ruined." Erik shook his head. "I can't take that on."</p><p>"Liar." Gabe got to his feet, fumbling to get his jodhpurs done up and his shirt tucked in again. "Tell yourself that if you want, but you're a liar. It's not about my life at all, it's about yours. You don't want to be kicked off the estate. You don't want to be sent back to America. I understand that, but don't pretend it has anything to do with me."</p><p>Erik stared at him, his expression shuttering and his eyes going cold and flat. "You really can't believe I would put you first? It's that hard to imagine?"</p><p>"Maybe that's what you think you're doing, but you're lying to yourself, too. You're just trying to protect yourself. You're a liar and you're afraid, and that's–"</p><p>Erik turned on his heel and walked away toward the horses. Krigare lifted his head and whuffed softly, ears flicking back and forth, like he recognized the thunderstorm of a mood coming for him. Gabe stood where he was, belt still undone, watching Erik untie the stallion, pull himself up into the saddle, and ride out across the field.</p><p>The mare whinnied after them, shifting her feet anxiously, and Gabe bit back a sigh. His ride back was going to be a lot less restful than the one out here. Apparently being left behind was what it took to get things moving.</p><p>**</p><p>Beatrice knocked on his door that night, wine in hand this time, but Gabe shook his head. "I'm not going down there tonight."</p><p>"Oh?" She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, depositing the bottle on the sideboard and dropping into his armchair. "This should be interesting."</p><p>"Don't be mean." </p><p>"Ah. It was bad?"</p><p>"Fairly bad." Gabe rolled his shoulders and crossed over to the window, looking out at the darkness of the lawn. "It was a mistake to think we could pick up where we left off. He's changed. We've both changed."</p><p>"Obviously." Her reflection in the window shrugged. "It's been three years. Everyone's changed."</p><p>"Well, part of how he's changed is that he's a fucking coward now."</p><p>Bea sighed. "Do you really think that, or are your feelings hurt and you're also being mean?"</p><p>He stood there for a minute, pressing his knuckles against the windowsill, then turned his head to look at her. "How do you always do that? It's awful."</p><p>"We're twins." She stood up, smoothing her skirt and reaching for the wine bottle again. "I don't have that excuse with him, but now I have to go soothe his ruffled feathers too. It will take longer."</p><p>"Tell him I'm sorry."</p><p>"No, you do that yourself, tomorrow." She tucked her hair behind her ear and opened the door. "I can't do <em>all</em> the work for you."</p><p>"Wait." Gabe took a breath. "Fuck. No. Let me go talk to him myself."</p><p>She raised an eyebrow. "Will you behave?"</p><p>"What does that mean in this context?"</p><p>"Not be mean."</p><p>"I will do my best." Fortunately Erik's room was on the ground floor, so at least Gabe could honestly know he wasn't going to throw him out a window. He wasn't sure Erik would have been able to say the same if Beatrice had talked to him first and had the same luck at getting him to agree to cooperate. "Can I have that wine, though? We'll need it."</p><p>"No. Get something stronger from downstairs." She slipped out into the hallway, smiling back at him like a smug ghost in the dim light. "I think that's what you'll both need."</p><p>Gabe couldn't argue with her about that either. Twin magic, or just Bea magic; whatever it was, she was always right. He pulled on a sweater and made his way downstairs, stopping for a bottle of vodka before going to the old servants' quarters and knocking on Erik's door.</p><p>"It's open," came from inside, and Gabe went inside to find Erik sitting cross-legged on his bed, a notebook open in front of him. He was twirling a pen slowly between two fingers, and promptly dropped it when he looked up and saw Gabe.</p><p>Gabe waved the vodka at him and went over to the windowsill for the eternally dirty set of glasses. "Peace offering."</p><p>"I was expecting your sister."</p><p>"I know. She visited me first and told me I was being an ass."</p><p>"If she called you that, I can't imagine what she would have said to me." Erik sighed and closed his notebook. "I'm not going to apologize for what I think and feel."</p><p>"I suppose I can understand that."</p><p>Erik fished the pen cap out of his sheets and clicked it in place, then tossed the pen at Gabe. "Can you apologize for calling me a liar, then?"</p><p>"I'm sorry for being so harsh about it." The pen had bounced off his chest and rolled away on the floor; he poured the vodka and handed Erik a glass before he tracked it down and placed it on the table. "I think you are… fooling yourself, if not flat-out lying, though. That's what I think and feel and I'm not going to apologize for that either."</p><p>"You're so goddamn stubborn," Erik said, but without any heat.</p><p>"So are you." Gabe took a drink and sat down on the edge of the table. "So. What do we do now?"</p><p>"I don't know." Erik groaned and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "I should tell you I'm standing my ground and we can't do that anymore. I should tell you to go upstairs and go to sleep. I should tell you to find a nice girl in Stockholm and get married and give your parents grandchildren. I should tell you to be <em>happy</em> instead of trying to turn me into someone reasonable, which I frankly do not think is even possible."</p><p>Gabe swallowed in the silence. "So are you going to tell me any of that?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Why not?"</p><p>Erik took a long drink of his own, eyes locked with Gabe's. "Because you stole that sweater from me three years ago. And now you're standing here wearing it. And I couldn't tell you to leave if I had to."</p><p>Gabe's breath stopped in his chest. "Erik."</p><p>He didn't consciously move toward the bed; he was just suddenly there, on his hand and knees on the mattress, braced over Erik and kissing him for dear life. Erik's hands were grabbing at his hips, his back, pulling at the sweater to get to skin, and the only thing Gabe was sure of was the pounding of blood in his ears and the desperate need to keep kissing Erik, tasting him, holding on to him, because if he wasn't holding on to Erik he was going to be swept away. </p><p>He had just enough presence of mind to know that he wasn't going to let Erik get away with his self-denial bullshit this time. Still kissing him, keeping his weight on him to keep him down, he got one hand in between them and fumbled at Erik's fly. Erik made a rough noise against his mouth, and his hands tightened on Gabe's back, but he didn't resist or push him away, and Gabe took the opportunity to push aside trousers and underwear and get his hand on hot skin.</p><p>"Gabe," Erik moaned, his breath hot and desperate. "Please."</p><p>"Not going to tell me no this time?" Gabe ducked his head to kiss Erik's neck and shoulder, letting his teeth scrape where the skin stretched tight over bone. "You told me no before."</p><p>"I'm saying please. Please keep… fuck… please touch me."</p><p>"Good." Gabe bit him properly, on the same spot, then soothed it with his tongue. He kept his hand moving in steady, tight strokes, reveling in the way Erik's hips shuddered under him, the way he kept trying to buck and squirm despite Gabe's weight holding him down.</p><p>"Fuck." Erik gasped again, his hands clutching Gabe's waist now. "God, don't… don't stop, fucking mark me up. Bite me everywhere. L-let everybody see."</p><p>Gabe shuddered at that, rolling his hips down and rubbing his own cock against Erik's thigh. "Everybody? You want my parents to see? My uncle?"</p><p>"<em>Fuck</em>." Erik laughed breathlessly. "Yeah. Beatrice. Anders. Everybody."</p><p>"Write my name all over you." Gabe switched to the other side of Erik's neck and bit again, sucking hard to make a heavy mark. His hand was still on Erik's cock, moving slower now from the distraction of talking, and he squeezed gently until Erik moaned and shook his head, eyes going wide and unfocused. </p><p>Making him look like that was—Gabe didn't have words for it, but it made something hot and dark surge in his stomach. He pushed that aside to figure out later and found Erik's mouth with his own again, kissing him on and on while he stroked him off until Erik came in a hot mess over Gabe's hand and his own stomach. </p><p>Erik let his head fall to one side, eyes closed, his face flushed bright red. Gabe pulled back slowly, swiping halfheartedly at the spilled semen with Erik's rucked-up shirt before he gave in to his own needs and undid his fly. Erik didn't open his eyes, but he must have felt the shift of Gabe's weight and heard the sound as his hand started moving over himself, because he reached out again, his hands settling on Gabe's hip and thigh to steady him.</p><p>Gabe tilted his head back, looking up at the damp-stained ceiling and working himself faster, rougher. He didn't want to draw it out this time, didn't want to linger; he wanted to come and collapse on Erik and have the afterglow Erik had denied them earlier. Maybe he was being selfish, but he didn't care, not now, not when Erik was pliant beneath him and touching him and had admitted that he <em>didn't want him to leave</em>. Gabe would hold on to those words until Erik forced him to let go, and even then he would fight until both of them were bloody.</p><p>Nobody had to bleed tonight, though. Gabe wiped his hand on Erik's much-abused shirt and stared down at him for a moment, trying to memorize him like this, messy and wrecked, not holding himself apart or guarding himself, just… here. With Gabe. All of him here, in the moment, looking up through sweat-tangled hair to meet Gabe's eyes.</p><p>"Not getting rid of me now," Gabe said softly, and Erik snorted, shifting under his weight.</p><p>"Come here." He glanced down at himself and made a face. "Or, well, not yet…" Wiggling out of the shirt was an awkward process, one Gabe admittedly didn't do much to help, but eventually it was discarded over the edge of the bed and Gabe was stretched out next to him, arm thrown over Erik's torso, chin resting on his chest.</p><p>"I never wanted to get rid of you," Erik said after a while. His fingers were stroking carefully through Gabe's hair, tracing the contours of his skull. </p><p>"You very clearly told me to go back to Stockholm and find a nice girl my parents would approve of." Gabe let a little more weight settle on his chin. "That's the definition of getting rid of me."</p><p>"Yes, but I didn't <em>want</em> to. I just knew I should." Erik sighed, a slow rise and fall under Gabe's head. "I know I still should. But obviously you're not going to cooperate."</p><p>"Not even a little bit." Gabe relented and turned his head to rest his cheek against Erik instead. "I'm not losing you again."</p><p>"What about finding some kind of compromise?"</p><p>The stubbornness of this man could keep a team of psychologists busy for a full year, Gabe was sure of it. "What would a compromise on this even look like?"</p><p>"You get married and produce the next heir to the Landeskog name and you and I… sneak around in the background?"</p><p>Gabe snorted and lifted his head enough to thump it back down again, hard. "You're joking. You would never be able to do that, you'd die of guilt."</p><p>"I could say the same about you."</p><p>"Then why even suggest it?" Gabe thumped him again. "Don't waste both of our time with that kind of thing."</p><p>"All right, fine." Erik was quiet for a moment, his fingers twisting Gabe's hair instead, tugging at it. "You get married and produce the next heir to the Landeskog name, and then we poison her."</p><p>"Erik!"</p><p>"And run away to America with the child, right? We live under false names somewhere out West, maybe in Colorado, and we—"</p><p>"You're horrible." Gabe shook his head and sat up, catching Erik's chin in his hand and making him look at him. "No getting married. No Landeskog heir. It's the twentieth goddamn century. I'll leave it all to Bea."</p><p>Erik's smile faded. "Your parents will be furious. They'll make your life a living hell."</p><p>Gabe traced the line of Erik's jaw. "They'll have a tantrum. I know that. But I'm not afraid of them, and I'm not going to throw away what I want to make them happy."</p><p>"What if your father cuts you out? What if <em>he</em> leaves everything to Bea?"</p><p>"There's a trust he basically can't cut me out of, even if he gives her the rest of it. And she'd be very good at being the most important Landeksog, honestly. She would rule with an iron fist. She might re-conquer Finland."</p><p>"I don't think Finland would appreciate that."</p><p>"Nobody cares what they think." Gabe leaned down and kissed him. "We don't have to figure everything out right now, you know."</p><p>"Thank god for that, because I don't have any answers." Erik shifted onto his side, facing Gabe, and pulled him in close. "Stay for a while?"</p><p>"Absolutely." Gabe closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of his skin, the musty air of the room, the lingering sweat and sex. He would stay here forever, if he could.</p><p>**</p><p>The rest of the week passed smoothly enough, with everyone playing their roles properly. Gabe ate meals with his family and kept up agreeable conversations at all of them and in the evenings after dinner. He went out for a ride with Erik every afternoon, though whether they lingered out in the fields or came back directly varied on what work Erik had to do that day. And every evening after their parents and Uncle Per went up to bed, he and Bea went down to Erik's room for gossip and drinking and laughter. </p><p>Bea always left well before Gabe did, with a knowing eye-roll and the expropriation of whatever bottle they were in the middle of. Thursday night, though, she lingered, flipping through one of Erik's books and frowning at the illustrations, her feet propped up on the foot of the bed between the two of them, who were sitting on the mattress. </p><p>"What's wrong?" Erik asked, always blunt. "Do you need some water?"</p><p>"No, I'm fine." She turned another page and gave it a full scowl. "I wanted to ask you two to do something with me, but it would be pulling you away from your little routine you've made."</p><p>"Do we have a routine? I'm not sure that's true." Erik reached over Gabe for the bottle of vodka and topped up his glass. "You should come riding with us tomorrow, anyway, you haven't been out since Gabe got here and I could use an extra body to keep everyone exercised."</p><p>"I would think Gabe's body took over for mine." </p><p>"He's not as good of a rider as you are. I need you to take out some of the higher-strung ones." He sighed and leaned back against the headboard to drink. "My problem children."</p><p>"Hm. Fair enough." She dropped the book on the table. "And in that case I feel better asking you to come to Gothenburg with me for the weekend."</p><p>Gabe frowned, returning the vodka bottle to the side table. "Gothenburg? What's there?"</p><p>"The closest decent dress shops and book shops to here." Beatrice rolled her eyes at his expression. "I know, I know, you don't care how you look and you don't read. I do both. Erik at least reads. And I'd like company. Mamma will go with me if I ask, but she has a cold and I don't want to drag her along if I don't have to. Will you come?"</p><p>The idea of driving to Gothenburg wasn't really Gabe's idea of a good time, but a weekend out from under family scrutiny—he could be persuaded by that. "I'll go. Because I <em>do</em> read, thank you very much. Erik?"</p><p>"What's the excuse for me coming along?" he asked, watching Beatrice with a half-smile. "Or am I just asking for a day off and happening to ride along with you?"</p><p>She smiled back. "You have an established record of taking a trip to Gothenburg every so often. Nobody will notice or mind."</p><p>Erik's face reddened at that; Gabe made a mental note to ask him about that later. "But why do <em>you</em> want me to come along?"</p><p>"To keep Gabbe entertained, to help me carry things, and because I like you. In that order."</p><p>"In that case, I can't say no." Erik downed the rest of his drink and leaned down to set the glass on the floor. "Leave early Saturday?"</p><p>"As early as we can drag Gabbe out of bed." Bea glanced at the clock on Erik's bedside and got to her feet with a sigh. "Speaking of which, I should go up to my own and let you do... do whatever it is you do."</p><p>"Thank you," Erik said simply, and Bea smiled at him again before turning to go. </p><p>Gabe caught Erik's hand, rubbing his thumb over the ridges of the knuckles. Two of them were swollen out of proportion with the rest; he knew if he asked, it would be waved off as a barn injury, the kind of thing that happened when every day was spent convincing large, hard-headed animals that they should do what they were told and not what they wanted. He didn't know how to get it across to Erik that he wanted to hear the stories, mundane and pointless as they were from Erik's viewpoint. All of the little stories would add up to him into a full picture of everything he'd missed, all the parts of Erik that were built after Gabe left. They would give him more to understand.</p><p>But Erik didn't seem to want to tell those stories, and he didn't ask for many about Gabe's life at the university, either. He was always focused on the now, on what they had in the immediate moment and getting as much out of it as they could. Gabe didn't blame him, exactly, he could understand the source of the impulse, but—</p><p>Well. He just wanted to dig in deeper, that was all. He wanted both of them to know everything, to crawl inside each other and build a home, to become intertwined and inseparable. </p><p>That would sound extremely alarming if he said it out loud. For the best not to. Instead he wrapped his hand around the back of Erik's neck and pulled him in to kiss, slow and careful. They had cut their ride short that afternoon, no lingering out in the fields, and except for a brief moment in the stable where he'd caught Erik off-guard and pressed up against him for a moment, they hadn't touched at all.</p><p>Erik smiled against his mouth, reaching up to brush Gabe's hair back. "You all right, too? I can't keep up with you both."</p><p>Gabe nodded, shifting around until his chest was resting on top of Erik's. "I'm fine. I'm glad you're not fighting me anymore."</p><p>"Don't test me, Landeskog. I could go back to fighting just on general damned principles." He closed his eyes, lashes stark against the shadows under them, and Gabe fought the urge to reach out and touch. He wanted to trace that bruise-dark skin, feel those lashes flutter against his fingertips, see if he could find the pulse trembling in delicate veins. Logically, he knew that if he tried it, Erik would jerk back and Gabe might very easily poke him in the eye. Not particularly good for the mood. </p><p>"No testing," he agreed instead, running his hand down Erik's chest. "Do you go to Gothenburg with Bea often?"</p><p>Erik tensed a little, and Gabe stilled. What was <em>that</em> about? "With Bea? No, I'm not… I can't be a chaperone. She usually goes with your mother, or Per and the current woman. I've only gone along with them once or twice." He frowned, blinking rapidly, and Gabe almost got distracted again by the play of his lashes against his skin before he spoke again. "I mean, I go more often than that, but by myself or with someone from the village."</p><p>Gabe couldn't imagine why going to Gothenburg would make Erik so tense, unless he thought Gabe would take it personally that he would go there and not to Stockholm. It was a little strange—who wouldn't prefer Stockholm?—but if Erik had been trying to avoid Gabe and his family, that made a bit more sense, and anyway Gothenburg was closer. Maybe it was just a matter of practicality.</p><p>Better not to turn this into testing either, though "Well, I hope you at least know some places we can get a drink while Bea's shopping."</p><p>Erik laughed a little and nodded, rolling them over so he was lying on top of Gabe, pinning him lazily to the bed. "I can come up with something, don't worry. Do you really want to talk about a shopping trip? Is that what you stayed down here for? Because I don't think I believe that. "</p><p>It was an obvious subject change, but not one Gabe objected to in any way, and since he didn't want a fight, either— "I had a few reasons," he said, arching an eyebrow. "Think you can figure out the other ones?"</p><p>Erik's investigation was thorough. Gabe had no further complaints.</p><p>**</p><p>They took Per's car to Gothenburg, and Bea drove, with Erik sitting in the passenger seat to direct her and Gabe in the back seat, sometimes looking out the window at the scenery and sometimes leaning forward between the two of them to make sure he didn't miss out on any conversation. </p><p>"You can't stand being left out, can you?" Bea smiled at him in the mirror. "Erik, I should've made you ride in the back with him to keep him occupied."</p><p>"How exactly am I supposed to do that?"</p><p>"Not anything inappropriate. Not in the car. I would have to leave you both on the side of the road if you tried that." </p><p>"I figured as much." Erik found Gabe's hand and squeezed it gently. "Tell us something scandalous about your cohort of terrifying young ladies of Stockholm."</p><p>"Do you remember Anika? I told you about her before, with the shoes and the French ambassador's son."</p><p>"Who could forget Anika," Gabe said, resting his chin on Erik's shoulder. "There's a new twist in the story?"</p><p>"Well, they sent the ambassador's son back to Paris, but they didn't send his attaché, who would drive him to her house, and who apparently doesn't see any reason to stop making those trips every few days on his own…"</p><p>Young ladies of Stockholm gossip carried them to where they stopped for petrol, and cigarettes for Gabe and Erik. They leaned against the car smoking in companionable silence while Bea walked around to stretch out her legs. </p><p>"This is nice," Erik said after a moment. He exhaled smoke through his teeth and looked at Gabe. "I know, it's just an overnight trip into town, and not even <em>Stockholm</em>"—he easily dodged Gabe's halfhearted smack— "but it's nice, the three of us together."</p><p>"We're together almost every night," Gabe pointed out. "We get drunk in your room together."</p><p>"I know, but—it's different, there. There are other people around, down the hall and upstairs and… and the ones upstairs are your family." He took another drag on his cigarette and sighed. "I know none of them are going to come looking and I know no one is going to bother us and I know all of that. But this is still different. It's nice." He shrugged, squinting out at the road and not looking at Gabe at all, now. "That's all I was saying."</p><p>Gabe tossed the butt of his cigarette down and ground it out with his heel. "I know what you mean. Getting away. Not having to be careful, even the little bit careful we are out in the field."</p><p>Erik snorted. "Not quite the same as that, come on. We're not going to fuck in front of your sister."</p><p>"I didn't <em>mean</em> that! Why did you have to say that!"</p><p>"I don't think I could even kiss you in front of her." Erik's face twisted in thought. "But holding your hand is fine, and just… sitting close to each other, knowing that she knows. Those are fine. Why do you think that is?"</p><p>Gabe shrugged, looking at the space between them, the few inches of the car's paneling from his hip to Erik's. It would be easy to bridge them. They could hold hands here and no one would see; the people on the road would be going too fast, and the body of the car was between them and the rest of the petrol station. All he would have to do is put his hand in that gap, nudge Erik's thigh, and wait for him to find him.</p><p>He didn't, though. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead. "I guess it's because we trust her," he said after too long of a pause. "Look, she's coming back now. We should get back on the road, I suppose."</p><p>Erik looked at him oddly before he nodded and got back in the car. Gabe climbed back into his seat and rested his head against the window, letting the coolness from the glass sink through his skin. Maybe it would go through his bones, too, all the way to his heart, and let him center himself before they got to Gothenburg.</p><p>**</p><p>Their first hour in the city was a whirlwind; they left their bags at the hotel and found a cafe for fika, then Bea led the way to the first of the shops she was interested in. There was a menswear store next door, so Gabe and Erik did their own shopping while she was busy. Unfortunately, she had a list of three more stores to visit, and they'd exhausted their own needs. </p><p>"We could find a bar," Gabe said. "I know she has a restaurant in mind for dinner, but a few drinks wouldn't hurt anything."</p><p>Erik looked up and down the street, his jaw tense, and for at least the third or fourth time that afternoon Gabe stopped himself from asking what was going on in his head. Erik would tell him if he wanted to; pressing him never went anywhere good. "I suppose," he said after a moment. "Tell her we'll meet her back here in an hour?"</p><p>Gabe went back into the store, then returned with a helpless shrug. "She said an hour and a half and we can't be drunk when we come back."</p><p>"That's fair." Erik was still looking down the street, his tone distracted. "Where do you want to go?"</p><p>Gabe walked around him, trying to physically place himself in Erik's line of vision, and Erik blinked at him with a puzzled look. "I don't know what's around here," Gabe said patiently. "You would know better than me. Where do you go when you're in town?"</p><p>Erik froze for a moment, eyes widening, then shrugged, looking away again. "Oh, a few places. Most of them aren't near here, though. There's one I've heard about that's nearby that's supposed to be good, I've never been. This way."</p><p>Was there any way to ask him what the fuck was going on that wouldn't make him bolt? Gabe couldn't think of one, but he had time to turn the question around from a few different angles while he followed Erik up one street and down another, then back again, two blocks further, and finally came to a nondescript bar on a nondescript street.</p><p>Gabe looked at the building, then at Erik. "This is somewhere you've heard good things about?"</p><p>Erik shrugged. "I haven't heard <em>bad</em> things. I heard of the name. You said you didn't have any better ideas."</p><p>Gabe bit down on a rude response and opened the door. "Fine. You're right. It doesn't matter."</p><p>The inside of the bar was also nondescript, to the point where Gabe had to wonder if it was some kind of intentional non-theme. They ordered at the bar and took a table off to one side, drinking in silence for a while. Gabe's head was whirling, trying to come up with something to break the strange tension between them, but he couldn't figure out how without knowing the source of it. It had never felt this strange between Erik and him before.</p><p>"What do you think—" he started, then stopped as a man stood up from a table at the back of the room and started up to the bar. As he passed them, Erik took a sharp breath, and the man looked at them, missing a step as his eyes settled on Erik's face.</p><p>Gabe waited for one of them to speak, to say hello or introduce him or even just acknowledge each other properly, but instead they stared for a moment, and then Erik dropped his gaze to the table, where one of his hands gripped his glass white-knuckled and the other held tightly onto the table's edge. The other man made a soft noise—sort of a choked-off acknowledgment without any words behind it—and walked to the bar, where he dropped some money, called shortly to the bartender, and left without waiting for change. </p><p>Gabe stared after him. "What in the world was…" </p><p>It hit him a moment too late, of course, just in time for him to look foolish, like his realizations always seemed to do. He choked on his own words, then picked up his glass and drank quickly, almost choking again and sending tears starting to his eyes. "Oh. Well. Never mind."</p><p>Erik was looking fixedly into his own glass, probably bright red all the way to his hairline, though Gabe couldn't tell in the dim light. "It's nothing."</p><p>"Don't." Gabe shook his head and drank again. "I wondered where you got your experience. It didn't make sense to think it was in the village. Just by raw numbers, there aren't enough—"</p><p>"Don't be mean." Erik's voice was low but fierce, his eyes still fixed on his drink. "I didn't do anything wrong."</p><p>"I didn't say you did." Maybe he had thought it, a little, but— "It makes sense. A good reason to come into town."</p><p>"Don't mock me, either." Erik looked up, finally, and his eyes sent a chill up Gabe's spine. "You don't know, all right? It was different for me. It's different outside of Stockholm. It's different when you're not a fucking Landeskog."</p><p>"I never used my family name to—"</p><p>"But you <em>could</em> have. If you ever needed to, you could have." Erik leaned back in his seat, shaking his head. "Saying that I knew your uncle wouldn't have stopped anyone from beating the shit out of me."</p><p>The words were heavy, graceless, and they took up too much air, filling all the space between them. Gabe opened and closed his mouth a few times, not able to find the right words, and Erik took pity on him after a moment, taking another drink and cutting his gaze away. </p><p>"Nobody ever did, no. I'm lucky like that." He rapped his knuckles on the table. "But yes, I met people in Gothenburg. Yes, I know a few bars for people like us. This isn't one of them, obviously."</p><p>Gabe tilted his head toward the door. "But he was."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"He recognized you."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Just because he'd seen you around?" Gabe waited, but Erik didn't blink. "Or because you…"</p><p>Erik drained his glass. "If you want to know, you'll have to actually ask. With all the words."</p><p>"You really make me want to punch you, sometimes." Gabe tilted his gaze to the ceiling for a moment. "Have you been with him?" </p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Gabe waited for a stab of pain in his chest, but instead there was just a dull kind of relief. He had known what the answer would be, really; now it was confirmed and he could move on. Anyway, it wasn't as if he could judge. "I'm better looking," he said, and thank god, the tension dissolved as Erik rolled his eyes.</p><p>"Yes, you are. You're better looking than everyone around here. You're a prince, an angel, a movie star, what else should I say to feed your ego?"</p><p>"That covers it." Gabe finished his drink and pushed the glass aside. "Let's get out of here, actually."</p><p>"And do what?"</p><p>"Walk? I don't know. I just don't want to sit here after all." </p><p>Erik rolled his eyes again, but nodded and finished his own drink. They started back in the general direction of where they were to meet Beatrice, detouring here and there, looking in shop windows, until they came across a bookstore.</p><p>Gabe browsed the shelves for a while before picking out two books he remembered his professors mentioning at school. Reading on his own time, for his own interest, would be a strange turn of events. He found Erik in the small English-language section at the back of the shop, a paperback in his hand, looking at the spines lined up on the shelves like there's a secret code in them he's just on the edge of cracking.</p><p>"We should get going soon," Gabe said, then winced as Erik jumped a foot in the air. "Sorry. I thought you heard me coming."</p><p>"Distracted." Erik shook his head sharply and set the paperback crosswise on top of one of the shelves. "Yeah, we can go."</p><p>"Get the book if you want it."</p><p>"It's just… trash. Pulp detective thing. I don't know how those make it all the way over here."</p><p>Gabe shrugged and reached for it, glancing at the cover before tucking it under his arm with his own books. "Everybody likes detective stories."</p><p>"I suppose." Erik sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Look. Gabe. I…"</p><p>Gabe waited, body tensing, clutching the books tighter against himself so that the cover of one dug painfully into his ribs. "What?"</p><p>"I did miss you." Erik glanced at him, then looks back at the shelves. "I don't want you to think I didn't, that I was lying about that."</p><p>"Why would I think that?"</p><p>Erik gestured around himself, encompassing the store, the streets, Gothenburg as a whole. "Because you figured out that I was coming here, that I was seeing other... I don't want you to think I wasn't <em>thinking</em> about you."</p><p>"I know that." He finally gave in and shifted his arm, moving the cover of the book out of his ribcage. He was suddenly very aware that while they were in a quiet corner of the shop, it was a very small shop, and they should go. "I'm not angry or anything. I was with other people in Stockholm, after all."</p><p>Erik nodded and grabbed another book off the shelf, unerringly enough that he must have been going back and forth on it for a while. "I just wanted to be sure you knew."</p><p>"I know. It doesn't change anything." He took a deep breath and held his hand out for the book. "Let's pay for these and go."</p><p>Erik finally looked at him again, eyes narrowing. "I can pay for my own."</p><p>"You won't let me be generous?"</p><p>"You're buying dinner, that's generous enough."</p><p>Gabe bit his tongue on the urge to argue. Erik needed his pride. He always had. And it didn't really matter, anyway; no point making two books a point of contention when apparently they could make a point of contention out of much bigger things when given half a chance.</p><p>He handed the paperback over and led the way to the counter, where they made their purchases in silence. Stepping back out onto the street, Erik slipped past him to lead the way, his shoulder pressing against Gabe's heavily for a moment in a sign Gabe recognized, and that let him take a breath. They had always been better at signaling those things without words, ever since they were children and barely-more-than-children who didn't know what the words were at all. They would be all right.</p><p>**</p><p>Beatrice was waiting for them outside the dress shop, and swept them back to the hotel to put her purchases away before they took a cab to the restaurant for dinner. She had picked somewhere ridiculous that would make Gabe wince when he reached for his wallet, but that wasn't a surprise. It was a game they had played for years.</p><p>They lingered late at the restaurant, first with dessert, then after-dinner drinks, then coffee, and finally made their way back to the hotel, Beatrice missing a step here and there until Erik took her by the arm and kept her steady. Gabe fell behind them, watching them in the streetlight glow. He couldn't pretend that it was the three of them against the world, like when they were children, not anymore. But just being together at all was something precious, something he wanted to keep close to his heart. He never wanted to lose that feeling.</p><p>Erik glanced back over his shoulder, frowning a little. "Are you all right? Do I need to carry both of you back?"</p><p>"I'm fine," Gabe said, at the same time that Beatrice said, "You're not <em>carrying</em> me" with great offense and then half-fell off a loose stone. Erik caught her easily, laughing under his breath while she swore and then stepped out of her shoes. </p><p>"I hate these," she said, hooking her fingers around the heels. "Gabbe, come help me, walk on my other side. This is stupid."</p><p>Gabe did as he was told, humming under his breath. Half a block along, Erik picked up the song, too, joining in off-key, and some of the magic restored itself, wrapping around them in the streetlight until they reached the hotel.</p><p>"I can go up myself," Beatrice said when they reached the lifts. She shifted her shoes back and forth between her hands, frowning a little, then brushed her hair out of her face. "You two don't have to come with me. Go out, have fun. I'll be fine."</p><p>"That would be more convincing if you were more sober." Gabe took the shoes from her. "I'll take you up. Erik, grab us a table at the bar next door? I could use one more drink, but there's no reason to go far."</p><p>Erik nodded and set off across the lobby, humming that same song in the same not-quite-right key. Beatrice watched him go, something dark in her eyes, then rested her head on Gabe's shoulder.</p><p>"He still thinks you're going to leave," she said, the words half-muffled against his sleeve.</p><p>Gabe couldn't help his flinch, even though it jostled her. "I've told him a dozen times I'm not."</p><p>"I guess he needs to hear it a few more." She straightened as the lift doors opened. "I could hear it a few more times myself, honestly."</p><p>"Bea."</p><p>"I know, I know. It's just… it's hard to believe you won't go."</p><p>Gabe choked down his exasperation. "Where exactly do you two think I'm going?"</p><p>"Wherever Mamma and Pappa tell you to." She fell silent as he told the operator their floor number and the lift creaked and groaned its way up, which gave him a moment to let the sharp stab of pain in his heart fade.</p><p>"Why would you say that?" he asked when they were alone again, making their way down the hall to Bea's room. "What have I done to make you both think that I—"</p><p>"It's not <em>personal</em>," she sighed, as if they had had this fight a thousand times. He was sure they'd never had it at all; it didn't seem like the kind of thing he would forget. But she sounded so tired. "You won't do it on purpose. But you're the golden boy, and part of being gold is keeping them happy." </p><p>He set her against the wall and turned to face her, waiting. She leaned heavily, then reached for the shoes still dangling from his hand. She lifted her eyebrows in question or maybe challenge—fuck if he could tell anymore. Maybe it didn't matter.</p><p>"I need you to give me your key," he said after they'd stood for a moment in silence. "Can't open the door without it."</p><p>"Oh." She blushed and fumbled with her purse, which at least broke off the eye contact that was making him feel a dozen times more awful. "Here. I'm out of cigarettes, can you spot me one?"</p><p>"That actually means three, right?" He opened the door and held it for her, watching her make her careful way to the bed before he pulled the pack out and counted five for her. He fanned them out on the side table. "Here. Drink some water before you go to sleep."</p><p>"Yes, sir." She started to pull the pins out of her hair, letting it fall down around her face piece by piece. "Go tell him again that you're not leaving."</p><p>"What's the point, if neither of you believe me?"</p><p>"Sometimes if you say things enough, they come true." She blinked at him, then smiled, a shy and crooked one that he knew was her most fragile and truthful expression. "Haven't you noticed that?"</p><p>He couldn't smile back, not quite, but just in case she was right, he said it for her. "I'm not going to leave. I promise."</p><p>**</p><p>Erik was sitting at the bar, making lazy conversation with the man next to him; as Gabe got closer, he heard the telltale signs of a chat about horse racing. He took the stool on Erik's other side and gestured at Erik's drink as the bartender approached. "Same as he's having. Thank you."</p><p>Erik broke off mid-sentence and smiled at him. "Everything taken care of?"</p><p>"I hope so." She had been smoking when he left, without either drinking or crying to go along with it. "Who's your friend?"</p><p>"This is Henrik. He writes about racehorses." Erik took a drink and gestured back and forth between them. "Henrik, this is Gabe. He's between occupations at the moment." </p><p>Gabe forced a smile and considered jamming his own room key into Erik's thigh. "I just graduated from university. Nice to meet you."</p><p>"Likewise." Henrik glanced up at the clock behind the bar and pulled on his jacket. "Well, have a good night, gentlemen. Remember to keep an eye out for that bloodline, Erik, I'm telling you, there's something special there."</p><p>"I absolutely will. Be safe getting home." Erik took another drink, rolling it on his tongue, then turned his body toward Gabe. "Took you a while to get here. Are you sure she's okay?"</p><p>"She's fine. I wouldn't have left her if she wasn't." Gabe wished his drink would arrive, so he would at least have something to do with his hands while feeling this petulant and unsettled. "Should I have taken longer? Were you hitting it off with your new friend?"</p><p>Erik went very still for a moment, his smile sharp as glass around the edges. "Let's not do that."</p><p>"Sorry." Gabe touched Erik's knee carefully in the shadow beneath the bar. "I'm a little drunk, I guess."</p><p>"You are." Erik's shoulders relaxed, his smile softened, and Gabe could breathe again. "Just the one nightcap for you, then."</p><p>"Fair." The bartender brought the drink then, and Gabe took a slow swallow, closing his eyes. "It's good that we're sharing a room, though."</p><p>Erik's eyes flicked toward the bartender, then back to Gabe. "Oh? Why's that?"</p><p>"You can make sure I get back in one piece." He flashed a smile at Erik over his glass, then drank again. "I'm not so far in the bag that I'll say something stupid, Erik. Relax."</p><p>"It's my job to look out for you. It always has been." Erik rested his chin in his hand, watching their reflections in the mirror behind the bar. Gabe followed his gaze and stuck in the image like a spider—different shades of blond, his pale skin and Erik's tanned by working in the sun, the soft edges of his body and the lean lines of Erik's. They made quite a picture, one he wanted to keep with him forever. He wondered if that was what Erik saw in the mirror, too, or something else entirely.</p><p>Erik's hand settled on Gabe's thigh under the bar, not quite as hidden as Gabe's touch had been. "Finish your drink. I want to head back." </p><p>If his hand hadn't been there, and lingering, the words might have been abrupt or cold. As it was, Gabe's pulse jumped and he downed the rest of his drink too quickly. "I'm done. Let's go."</p><p>From the bartender's face when Gabe paid their tab, he significantly over-tipped. He'd consider it a good deed that he hoped would come back to him when they got back to the room. Erik steadied him on the short walk to the hotel, his hand first on Gabe's shoulder and then at the small of his back, easing him through the doors and across the lobby, then keeping him from listing off to one side while they waited for the lift. </p><p>"Erik." Gabe kept his voice low, or at least he hoped he did—from the amused twist of Erik's mouth when he looked at him, it might not have been entirely successful. "I hope you don't think we're going right to sleep."</p><p>"I assumed you had things to talk about, yes." He tilted his head in warning and Gabe bit down hard on his tongue, caught between wanting to say what he wanted and knowing he couldn't, not here, not where the porter or the lift operator or the stone-faced man at the reception desk might overhear them. Legality didn't mean free of trouble. They could easily both end up bleeding from the face and having to sleep behind the trash bins in the alley tonight.</p><p>The lift door opened. Erik steered Gabe in by the shoulder again and gave the operator their floor. The motion of the car was much worse than walking; Gabe closed his eyes tightly and clutched one hand over his stomach, and Erik's hand tightened on his shoulder, reassurance and warning at once. Vomiting in the lift wouldn't leave either of them bleeding or in the alley, but it wouldn't make them any friends and would keep them out of their room for longer than either of them wanted.</p><p>Finally they were at the room, then in the room, and Gabe was dragging Erik to the bed by the front of his jacket. "Stop that," Erik said, trying to dislodge him enough to get the buttons undone. "Give me a minute. Jackets and shoes off first, Landeskog, you know better than that."</p><p>Gabe pulled him in for a kiss first, hard enough that their teeth clicked together and his lip stung with the promise to swell. "Hurry." He let go and went to work on his own jacket, tossing it aside before prying his shoes off without benefit of shoehorn or unlacing them. His shirt was an obstinate obstacle, reducing him to hissing frustration before Erik's hands covered his, guided them away, and then took over the task themselves. </p><p>Staring down and watching Erik's fingers work each button free was mesmerizing, and steadying to Gabe's stomach, somehow. "I want you tonight."</p><p>"I know you do." He slipped the final button free and pushed the shirt back off Gabe's shoulders. "You haven't been subtle about it at all."</p><p>"No, I mean I… I <em>want</em> you." Gabe lifted his chin and looked Erik in the eyes, trying to put all of his meaning into his own gaze, all of his desire, everything in his mind and racing heart and soul.</p><p>Erik's breath hitched, his hands going still for a moment before he swallowed and went back to getting Gabe's shirt off. "Hold your arms up, you have to help me." </p><p>"Are you going to…"</p><p>"If you ever get undressed. Jesus." Shirt finally taken care of, Erik stepped back and went to work on his own, while Gabe wrestled his undershirt and then his trousers off. At least those were simpler. </p><p>When he looked up again, Erik was stepping out of his own trousers, then folding them over his arm and lying them over the back of a chair. Gabe smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Fastidious."</p><p>"It's a habit." Erik kept his eyes carefully on the fabric, but Gabe could see his nervousness in the tension at the corners of them. </p><p>If he was nervous, then Gabe would have to be reassuring. No teasing, no games. He sat up straighter and kept his voice soft when he spoke. "Erik. Look at me." And once he did. "Come to bed."</p><p>Erik stepped away from the chair, his hands making vague arcs in the air and then curling in loose fists for lack of anywhere else to go. "You're sure you want that?"</p><p>Hopefully they were talking about the same thing. Gabe moved backwards up the bed, letting his legs fall apart a little, watching how Erik's gaze tracked the movement. Fairly reassuring. "Yes."</p><p>Erik swallowed, then nodded, resolve steadying his jaw. "All right." He turned away and went to his bag, kneeling to dig through it, and Gabe abandoned his pose to lean across the bed and watch. Erik unzipped his shaving kit, pushing aside razor and brush and comb to produce a packet of petroleum jelly. Gabe's pulse jumped, in his throat and in his cock, and he scrambled back up the bed again to resume some approximation of being enticing before Erik turned to look at him.</p><p>There was a moment of stillness, where Erik's eyes moved over him again, inch by inch like he was memorizing what he saw. Gabe wanted to break the tension, to tell him to just <em>move</em>, that he could see this as often as he wanted, but Erik's eyes stopped him. The expression there was too much, too raw, more than Erik would ever want him to see. The right thing to do would be to look away, then crack a joke, maybe, or let Erik panic and leave if that was what he wanted. </p><p>Gabe had been called selfish enough times to be comfortable with it. He didn't move, and he didn't joke, and he didn't look away. </p><p>Erik finally took a deep breath, something more like himself coming back to his eyes. The tension in his shoulders and around his mouth eased, and he got onto the bed with assurance. He crawled up the bed to straddle Gabe, hands bracketing his shoulders on the mattress, then kissed him slowly, licking at Gabe's mouth like he wanted to savor what Gabe could only imagine was the taste of varying levels of beer and whiskey and coffee.</p><p>"I don't know if I could do this at home," Erik said, his voice soft enough not to break the moment. "Not the first time, you know? This is… this is better, it's like we're somewhere else. Another planet, maybe."</p><p>Gabe wanted to ask why that mattered, why it was better to be somewhere else, but Erik was kissing him again, so he let it go. He let everything go in favor of running his hands up Erik's sides, over his back, down to the curve of his ass. Erik's breath hitched against his mouth, but neither of them pulled away or stopped. </p><p>Erik's knee bumped Gabe's thighs apart and Gabe went with it easily, shifting his weight to let his hips open up and make room for Erik to kneel between them. Erik's hands were sure and warm, running quickly over Gabe's chest and abdomen on their way to stroke and tease at his cock, the packet of jelly tucked in the curve of his thumb and brushing Gabe's groin now and again in a reminder, a promise. </p><p>Gabe turned his head, breaking the kiss to take a deep gulp of air. "Fuck. Don't tease?"</p><p>"I won't." Too much in Erik's voice again, more than he ever wanted to give and Gabe <em>knew</em> that, but they were past the point of stopping now even if either of them had wanted to. Erik ran his thumb over the head of Gabe's cock, collecting a few drops of wet, then brought his hand to Gabe's mouth and let him suck it clean again. Gabe's cock jerked, drawing up against his stomach, and he gulped in air again.</p><p>"All right," Erik said, so softly that maybe it was to himself. "All right, just relax, I've got you." Gabe heard the packet tearing open, then soft wet sound of the jelly being spread over Erik's fingers, and then those fingers were at his entrance, two of them easing aside slowly but without a hint that they might retreat. </p><p><em>This is happening</em>, Gabe thought hazily, distantly. <em>We're doing this, finally, after how long?</em> Doing the math would ruin this, and he didn't want to picture them as children, anyway—but he wanted to summon up the feeling of it, the shared joy of summer days and shared jokes and racing the wind up one hill and down another. He wanted to remember when they swore they would always be best friends. He wanted to remember when they swore they would always be <em>together</em>, no matter what, them against the world.</p><p>"Gabe," Erik said, his voice thick. "Are you still with me?"</p><p>Gabe nodded, realizing his eyes had fallen closed. He blinked them open and looked at Erik's face, watching with something like awe as a flush spread across Erik's cheekbones and up to his hairline, as Erik's eyes narrowed and then widened as he set himself against Gabe's entrance, as his breath hitched and his teeth caught his lower lip as he pushed inside. </p><p>Gabe was still with him, absolutely, through all of it, but not thinking clearly enough to memorize much more. There was the stretching pain and then just the stretch as he got used to it—heat and sweat and friction that the jelly didn't quite smooth away—muscles clenching and relaxing and threatening to cramp at the worst time. Thank whatever angel looked out for people like them, his body took pity on him and stayed the course. He didn't cry out until he reached the edge and fell, coming in a mess between their bodies.</p><p>Erik took a few minutes longer, hips jerking helplessly, head hanging low over Gabe's chest. Gabe wanted to brush Erik's hair off his forehead, pet him, encourage him, but he couldn't quite manage any of it. The best he could do was keep taking Erik in, try to stay lost in the heat and pulse and how <em>good</em> it was, and gasp Erik's name over and over again as he mustered the breath.</p><p>Finally Erik buried himself deep, enough that Gabe could feel the ache behind his eyes, and his hips jerked one last time. He slumped down against Gabe's chest, mouth open and wet on Gabe's sternum, and they breathed together for a while, loud in the hotel room.</p><p>Eventually, Gabe had to move, the muscles that had managed not to cramp in the heat of things running out of patience. Erik made a vague sound of protest, but pulled back, letting a sloppy mess streak along Gabe's thighs. </p><p>"I'll bring you a towel," Erik said, his voice rough in ways Gabe couldn't decipher. He just nodded, rubbing at his face, and sat up, trying to move so they could spare some of the bedding for use that night.</p><p>Erik returned with not only a towel but two glasses of water. They cleaned up and drank in silence, a drowsy one on Gabe's part. He still couldn't tell what Erik was thinking. He fumbled around in the sheets and found Erik's hand, squeezing it carefully as if that would tip the odds in his favor.</p><p>And thank god, Erik smiled at him. "If you have complaints, now really isn't the time to bring them up, so you know."</p><p>Gabe shook his head, smiling too. "No complaints."</p><p>"Good. I couldn't take it right now."</p><p>"Absolutely none." Gabe swayed toward him, and Erik shifted to lean back against the headboard so Gabe could settle himself against his shoulder. "I was thinking about whether we'll have time to do that again in the morning, actually."</p><p>"Not if you're this sleepy after and we have to meet Beatrice the early riser for breakfast." Erik's hand cupped the back of Gabe's neck, rubbing careful arcs. </p><p>"Tomorrow night, then. Back at the house." Gabe closed his eyes, breathing in the smell of Erik's sweaty body. "And I want to take you to Paris."</p><p>Erik laughed, more startled than amused. "Paris? Why?"</p><p>Gabe shrugged, smiling against Erik's skin. "I don't know. It's supposed to be good for people like us? It's a city everyone should see at least once? It's somewhere else, like you said. Another planet."</p><p>Erik's hand started moving again, tugging at the hair at the nape of Gabe's neck, carefully. "Planet France."</p><p>"Exactly."</p><p>"Neither of us speak French." </p><p>"We'll muddle by."</p><p>Erik was quiet for a while, fingers moving slowly, making soothing patterns that would have tipped Gabe over into sleep if he hadn't still been waiting for some kind of an answer.</p><p>"I hear they've done some amazing things since the war," Erik said finally, and Gabe smiled again, counting a victory in his heart before drifting off to sleep.</p><p>**</p><p>"Here's the list," Beatrice said, walking into Gabe's room without pause or knocking. "I can't believe you're going to Paris without me." </p><p>"Thank you for being understanding." He took the paper from her and glanced over it, then looked at her and sighed. "How am I supposed to bring all of this back?"</p><p>"That's your problem." She sat down on the edge of the bed, frowning at his suitcase. "I suppose it wouldn't be much fun sitting around the hotel while you and Erik moon over each other."</p><p>"Is that an implication that we won't be leaving the hotel, or—"</p><p>"Interesting that that's where <em>your</em> mind goes." She sighed. "I hope you have a good time. Both of you. Convince him to stop hiding here and come to Stockholm. He deserves to live life, have fun, everything."</p><p>"He does deserve everything." Gabe tucked the list in with his undershirts. "I'm not buying this many pairs of shoes, Beatrice, you know I won't pick the right ones anyway and you'll be mad about it."</p><p>"I marked the most important ones. Get those." She was quiet for a moment, watching him sort through socks, then stretched her leg out and kicked him gently in the thigh. "You know you need to talk to Mamma and Pappa before you go."</p><p>Gabe kept his eyes firmly fixed on the socks. "About what?"</p><p>"Your plans."</p><p>"They know we're going to Paris. Pappa arranged the tickets."</p><p>"You know what I'm talking about." Gabe set his jaw in silence and she kicked him again. "You have to talk to them about what you're going to do in the fall."</p><p>"Don't kick me."</p><p>"Then don't be a brat!"</p><p>He gave up on the socks and looked at her. "I don't know what I'm doing in the fall yet."</p><p>"You're running out of time to figure it out."</p><p>"It can wait until after Paris."</p><p>"Can it?" She raised her eyebrows at him. "Are you sure? If Pappa has to pull more strings for you because you put it off until late, then that's putting you more under his thumb, not less, you know."</p><p>Gabe exhaled slowly, stepping away from the bed. "I'm… waiting for something. I can't decide until I hear back."</p><p>Her outraged noise would have been a point in his favor, any other time. Keeping a secret from Beatrice was a game he had been losing his entire life. "Hear back from <em>whom</em>? About <em>what</em>?"</p><p>"I don't want to talk about it in case I jinx it." Meeting her eyes was a sure way to end up losing the game all over again. He looked out the window instead, just in time to see Erik silhouetted against the sky, out in the fields exercising one of the mares Per was taking to sell at auction. </p><p>"Well, what if the answer comes when you're out of the country? Then what are you going to do?"</p><p>He laughed, still watching Erik as he put the mare through her paces. "I assume you'll open all of my mail while I'm gone and read anything interesting to me over the phone. You always do."</p><p>"Oh, that's true." He heard her stand up and start moving around, probably going through the things he had laid out on the table to pack later. "What particular letter should I keep an eye out for? Or at least what return address?"</p><p>He was not going to fall for that. Erik let the mare stretch out into a rolling canter and disappeared over the far side of the hill. "You'll know it when you see it, I think. And I'll be lucky to be in Paris and out of slapping range when you do."</p><p>His passport made surprisingly solid contact with his shoulder. Bea could throw <em>hard</em>. "I'm going to tell Erik all kinds of terrible secrets about you tonight," she said ominously. "There's no way to save yourself now."</p><p>"What if I promise every pair of shoes on the list after all?" He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Well?"</p><p>She smiled at him, wide and evil. "Not even close to good enough. Keep bargaining."</p><p>**</p><p>Paris was both more and less than Gabe had hoped for. The bars and cafes and shops were exactly as he'd pictured them, exactly what he wanted. He and Erik <em>did</em> spend long hours at the hotel, if not the endless ones Bea had implied. And in general, spending all of his time with Erik was… it was perfect. Waking up together, going to breakfast together, not having to be apart at all unless they made a deliberate choice to separate and meet up again—it was amazing.</p><p>Unfortunately it also made it impossible to pretend that Erik wasn't holding back from him. </p><p>It wasn't anything overt or obvious, but it was consistent enough that he couldn't hide from it. Those searching looks, like he was memorizing Gabe before he vanished forever. Or worse, when his eyes got distant, like Gabe was already gone and he was just <em>remembering</em> him. Little flinches away from Gabe's touch, never in truly intimate moments but in the ones where the touch honestly could be harmless—when Gabe steadied himself on his arm, or brushed something off Erik's shoulder.</p><p>When they were in bed, or laughing over something together, or drinking together in a bar with slowly-rising tension between them, both <em>knowing</em> where things would culminate, already anticipating touch and taste and heat—it was easy to forget about it, then. Gabe could tell himself that he'd imagined every sliver of a moment where he reached for Erik and Erik wasn't there. He could believe that they were really in this, together, for good.</p><p>But then another one of those moments would come. A little distance, a little flinch, a missed word, a stare. Gabe couldn't deny it. </p><p>They only had so much time together in Paris. Just a few precious weeks. He didn't want to lose more of it to these gaps in things, patches of emptiness that threatened to swallow all of his happiness whole. </p><p>There was nothing Erik hated more than talking about his emotions. Gabe was going to have to approach this carefully, with alcohol, and away from any open windows.</p><p>He caught Erik's arm as they stepped away from the dinner table in the hotel's restaurant that evening. "I'm going to walk down to that shop on the corner," he said. "I need cigarettes. I'll join you upstairs?"</p><p>Erik frowned, looking out the lobby windows at the street. "I can come with you."</p><p>"It's fine. I'll only be a few minutes. Go upstairs, get comfortable."</p><p>Erik's eyebrows went up and the corner of his mouth twitched. "Oh. Predictable."</p><p>"It's good to be comfortable, isn't it?" Gabe smiled as innocently as he could and walked out of the hotel.</p><p>The corner shop had cigarettes, and some of the chocolate bars that he knew Erik was weak for, and also sold bottles of whiskey from under the counter. Gabe carried his bounty back in a dark paper bag, feeling like a spy setting up some kind of trap to extract information. Weakening the defenses, offering bribery, and a smoke afterward to celebrate a job well done.</p><p>Back at the room, Erik had opened the window, letting in evening street noise while he sat at the table in his shirtsleeves, frowning at a newspaper. Gabe knew without bothering to look that it was the horse racing pages; Erik was supremely unlikely to be reading actual news events in Swedish. "That's a big bag for a pack of cigarettes," he said, turning the edge of the page down to look over it. "Are you up to something?"</p><p>"How could you accuse me of that?" Gabe produced each item from the bag with a flourish and lay them on the table. As predicted, Erik's eyes lit up at the chocolate bars, and he reached for one, pulling back with a sharp laugh when Gabe swatted his hand. "Not yet," Gabe said, going to the sideboard for glasses. "We're going to talk first."</p><p>Erik's eyes narrowed and he folded the paper up carefully. "Talk about what?"</p><p>"Lots of things." Gabe poured the whiskey, adding a generous extra splash to each glass after they were both reasonably full. That sent Erik's eyes even more narrow. Squinting like a man who'd lost his glasses. "Here. Drink up."</p><p>"What's so scary that you need to get me drunk before you'll talk about it?" He did drink, though, long swallows that killed half the glass before he stopped to breathe. Gabe took a more measured drink of his own before sitting down at the other side of the table and answering.</p><p>"We need to talk about how you're not here, all the time."</p><p>Erik blinked. His mouth opened, then closed, and he settled back in his chair, looking at Gabe with pure bafflement. "I'm not?" At Gabe's slow head-shake— "Where am I, then?"</p><p>"That's what I'm asking."</p><p>"I don't think I'm having out of body experiences. I don't think aliens are carrying me off to Mars." Erik shook his head and spread open his hands. "I have no idea what you're talking about."</p><p><em>Fuck</em>. Gabe took another drink. "So it's going to be stubbornness and obfuscating. I was hoping you might be cooperative for once."</p><p>"I can't cooperate when I honestly have no idea what you're talking about." Erik took another drink, his expression tightening. "Just explain it to me. I don't like it when you play games."</p><p>"I'm not playing games with you. I never play games with you."</p><p>That earned a scoffing noise that grated over Gabe's nerves. "The hell you don't."</p><p>"When have I ever!" He'd had a whole plan not to be baited by Erik, but apparently that was impossible; Erik knew him too well, knew every route under his skin. Thank god the rest of the bottle was sitting there waiting.</p><p>Erik snorted, jerking his head to the side to look at the hideous painting over the sideboard instead of at Gabe. "Like this whole summer hasn't been a game."</p><p>Gabe stopped. Everything, his heart, his thoughts, just—stopped. "What?"</p><p>"You know we can't really be together. Or if you've convinced yourself otherwise, I still know it. This?" Erik gestured between them. "This lasts until the end of the summer. Then you'll… you'll be a good son. You'll do what your parents want. You'll keep up your family obligations. You'll go off to become the person you're supposed to be."</p><p>"Erik." Gabe stared at him. "You really think that?"</p><p>"I <em>know</em> that. I'm not stupid. And I don't even blame you!" He laughed a little, sharp-edged and painful above the street sounds still coming through the window. "It's good to have a family you need to do things for. I wish mine gave a shit about me, maybe I'd want to do things for them, too. It's good to… to be good. To have goals and a plan. To make something of yourself, something real. I never had a chance to do any of that, I'm just trash left behind on the side of the damn road." His eyes were bright as he looked ahead again, not at Gabe but at his glass before he picked it up and drained the last of it. "I'd be jealous of you, honestly, if it didn't hurt so fucking much to know that you're going to leave me."</p><p>Gabe couldn't respond for a minute; responding would require being able to think, and put words together in a reasonable way, and for his chest not to be so tight that he was struggling to breathe. </p><p>"Don't faint on me," Erik said after a moment. His face was red now, and he was still staring stubbornly at his now-empty glass. "I know that was dramatic, and not what you wanted to hear at all, but it's all true, so just… just admit it, accept it, so we can get through to the part where you go."</p><p>"You're not trash," Gabe whispered.</p><p>Erik reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. His hand was shaking, Gabe noted distantly; not as steely as he was putting on, then. "I suppose that was the most dramatic part."</p><p>"And I'm not going to leave you. I wouldn't ever leave you." </p><p>The bottle met the table again with a bang. "You already did once."</p><p>"Not again." Gabe's voice was shaking, he could hear it and feel it, a distant second to the ache in his chest. "I'm not ever going to leave you again."</p><p>"Gabe! <em>Stop</em>. We have to be adults about this, we have to acknowledge how the world fucking <em>works</em>."</p><p>"You don't understand. You don't know." He forced himself to take a deeper breath, to make his reluctant lungs fill enough to let him think. "I'm not doing any of the things Pappa wants. I'm going… I mean, I hope I'm going… Gothenburg. The university. The medical school."</p><p>Erik stared at him blankly. "What?"</p><p>"Medical school. Doctor. To… to be a…" He stopped himself, breathed again, tried again. "I wrote to the medical school director, about if I could apply late. It's trading on the family name, but for the last time, I swear. Pappa won't want much to do with me after this anyway."</p><p>"You hate Gothenburg." Erik took another drink, his hand shaking more than before, but Gabe could see his eyes, a little flash of hope under the confusion. "The only place you want to be is Stockholm."</p><p>"I don't hate it. I just… never thought about it. But the medical school is there. And it's close to you. We could see each other. When I finish medical school we could live somewhere close enough to the city for me to commute and far enough out that you could have horses. We'll get Uncle Per to let us take Krigare. I have it all planned out." He stopped, his hands clutching at the edge of the table. "I haven't heard back yet, but… but I really have thought all of this through. I guess I should have told you that."</p><p>Erik put his hand over his mouth, then slid it up to cover his eyes. "You don't have to do that for me. Any of that. Why… why would you do that for me?"</p><p>"I want to." Gabe wished he knew how to put his whole heart in his voice. He hoped what he could manage was enough. "I want to be with you. I want to be a doctor, too, I mean, it's not just about you. I think I'd be better at it than finance or diplomacy. And more interested in it. And it will let me do my military service later, and differently, I won't have to be so far away for so long. It solves a lot of problems, and it lets me be independent from my family, and… and we could be happy." He stopped, trying to think of anything he'd left out, anything that could help him make the case if Erik <em>still</em> didn't believe him. "We could be together."</p><p>There was only a splash left in Erik's glass; he drank and then pushed it away before putting the cap back on the whiskey bottle with exaggerated care. "If they let you in."</p><p>"Yes." Thinking about that made Gabe's whole mind go white around the edges. "I haven't heard back. They're supposed to write me at home, and Bea will call and read me the letter."</p><p>"Bea's in on this?" Erik put his hand over his face again. "Oh, god. You should've mentioned that first. She's probably been in Gothenburg this whole time, terrorizing the entire medical faculty. You're good as in, there's no way they'll tell you no. They would let us <em>both</em> in just to make her go away."</p><p>"That's mean." Gabe thought about it for a minute, rubbing his thumb over the table's edge. "But not wrong."</p><p>"Jesus." Erik got to his feet, unfolding from the chair with only a little wobble as the whiskey caught up to him. "You are full of surprises. I shouldn't be surprised, is the thing, I should expect this from you by now, but somehow you always…"</p><p>"You like that about me, right?" Gabe tried for a smile. "I hope you like that about me."</p><p>"I like that about you so much. I love that about you." Erik held his hands out to him, his voice low and fervent. "Get up. Come here. Take me to bed."</p><p>The chair almost went over as Gabe scrambled to his feet. "In that order?"</p><p>"Yes, in that fucking order, what is wrong with you." Erik grabbed his hands and pulled him in, kissing him fast and hungry and bruising before pulling back and dragging him toward the bed. "I need to do this again, without wondering if it's the last time in the back of my head. I need you to make me feel it."</p><p>Gabe squeezed his hand tight. "Make you believe it?"</p><p>Erik stopped and looked at him, eyes wild. "I believe it. I trust you. But I need you to make me <em>feel</em> it so I can't forget."</p><p>Gabe leaned in and kissed him again, slower this time, taking control of it before Erik could race ahead again. "I can do that. I don't want you to ever forget or doubt me again."</p><p>"It's a deal." Erik kept looking in his eyes, a smile starting to grow, one that Gabe couldn't remember seeing in years. Truly, honestly happy, without a flash of cynicism, without fear. </p><p>He had to kiss it, taste Erik's happiness, take a moment to revel in it before let go of Erik's hands and shoved him in the chest, knocking him backward onto the bed. </p><p>Erik sprawled out in a mess of limbs, laughing. "Is this what I've gotten myself into?"</p><p>"Absolutely." Gabe stripped his shirt off, looking Erik's body up and down. "Get undressed. I have a lot to make you feel tonight."</p><p>It was big talk for what actually ended up being very tender—Gabe worked his fingers inside Erik's body until he was writhing and begging, twisting the sheets around their legs. Gabe kissed him while he pushed inside, and kept kissing him while he thrust steady and deep, until they were both breathing too fast and roughly to kiss anymore. He didn't touch Erik's cock until Erik was begging again, a whine in his voice, thighs shaking with the effort of holding himself together, and when Gabe finally let him go over the edge, the tight pulsing heat of his body sent Gabe over, too, almost in sync.</p><p>They lay tangled up together for a while, sweat cooling on their skin. Gabe gradually became aware of the street noise still coming through the window, along with nighttime chill that was going to be uncomfortable very soon. Erik sighed under him, a deeply contented sound, and then just before Gabe could kiss him and see if they could warm up again, Erik wiggled out from under him and then out of the bed. </p><p>"What—" Gabe started, but Erik shook his head, flashing a smile that was sweet this time, while still happy and hopeful in a way that made Gabe feel like his heart might burst.</p><p>"Just one minute." Erik closed the window, then slipped into the bathroom for a moment. When he came back he tossed a towel to Gabe and then detoured to the table, picking up the cigarettes and chocolate bars before returning to bed with a triumphant smile. "For you." He put the pack on Gabe's chest. "And for me."</p><p>"You're not going to share those at all?"</p><p>Erik stripped the wrapper and broke off the first piece of candy, popping it in his mouth with a happy groan. "I don't think so. If you really want it, you're going to have to convince me."</p><p>"You're impossible." Gabe leaned in and kissed him, stealing the taste of the chocolate before sitting up and searching the bedstand for his lighter. "But I like a challenge."</p><p>**</p><p>The phone rang the next morning, before they had really made much progress toward starting the day. They'd managed coffee and the morning paper, but had taken them both back to bed with them. It was still a vacation, Gabe assured himself; it wasn't <em>so</em> bad to be lazy.</p><p>"A long-distance call for Mr. Landeskog," the front desk manager's voice said crisply. "From Sweden."</p><p>Gabe's heart skipped, but he cleared his throat and answered in an almost normal tone. "Yes, of course. Put it through, please." </p><p>There was a click, a slight buzz, and then Beatrice's voice, bursting with joy. "Gabbe, you brat, I can't believe I'm going to have to weekend in Gothenburg all the time, you better still come to Stockholm on holidays, and bring Erik with you."</p><p>Gabe almost dropped the phone. "They're taking me? The medical school will take me?"</p><p>"You got in, yes, they're arranging things now, you start in a month. Oh, I'm so happy for you and I hate you and put Erik on the phone, I need him to punish you for me."</p><p>Gabe fell back against the pillows, laughing in relief, and Erik took the phone out of his hand. "Hello? Bea? Yes, I figured that out. I understand. Yes. We'll figure it out as soon as we get back." He looked down at Gabe, smiling, and took Gabe's hand in his, holding on tight. "I'm happy, too."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The guy in the bar who Erik hooked up with before? John Klingberg, in a cameo.</p><p>The Karls, Sebastian, and Henrik are not intended to map to hockey players, though, just names.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>